2009 USATF National 5K Road Championships

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Providence, Rhode Island... You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, and stupidity.

It starts off with the front desk guy at the motel who can't look up our reservation by the confirmation number, only by the name of the person who made the reservations, only he didn't tell us that, Andy Crawford just happened to guess the right name aloud and the desk guy perks up, "that's it!" after we spend at least fifteen minutes milling around the lobby and calling Coach Reif and others back in Rochester.

Next came the trek to the airport to pickup Jordan Zwick, a seven minute drive that took forty. We had printed out a map off google which showed a simple straight shot to the airport, but the road forked so immediately and unexpectedly that we concluded that our map was drawn to scale and we'd driven off it. The road then forked again and again as if we had stumbled into the capillaries of a Fantastic Voyage plot.

We asked directions at a Subway and the kid directed us down a road that dead ended into a lake. We asked directions there and a close talker practically leaned in my window to say, "wow, that's really far from here." He then told us to go down to the light with the gun store on the right, "wait till the light turns green before turning right." Yes, thank you. I passed driver's ed, asshole. But later when we came to the light it turned out that there was a half-obscured "No turn on red" sign and our opinion of the guy increased greatly.

We finally came in sight of the airport, but airports are large things and we had no idea which way was quickest to circumnavigate it. We tried to wave down a car and in response the lady driving smiled and waved back at the car of friendly young men. We picked a direction randomly and just as soon as Fontana Fluke declared that he knew the way and this was it we passed a "road closed" sign and found our path impeded by six, three foot diameter boulders lined up across the road.

Finally we pick up Jordan who is wearing a sweatshirt and freezing his Florida ass off in our lovely sixty degree weather. We make it to a restaurant with all six of us packed in my car. I do have six seat belts, but the front middle seat is really only meant for small children so I can't see out two of my mirrors and Hine has to hug his knees to his chest and duck his head.

After dinner we try to pick up some breakfast food since our hotel only serves coffee. The grocery store owner slams the doors in our face, closing promptly at 8:59 and 59 seconds, depriving us of pre-race bananas, but perhaps she wasn't cruel, but scared of gang violence from the six young men striding towards her doors at closing time, because not ten minutes later, with the sound of distant sirens already wailing, an ambulance rushes by us as we wait at a crosswalk. The ambulance is immediately followed by a speeding car of men smoking stogies who yell at us, give the finger, and flash gang signs.

That's Saturday. Race start is Sunday at 11:15 am. Breakfast at 8:30 is what we could buy at Walgreens the night before and a few items Dan Moore had the foresight to pack. I have one piece of bread with peanut butter and honey, a few handfuls of dry cheerios, and some apple-cran juice. We arrive at the race and nick a ridiculously convenient parking space, the only one in the lot. We chill out on the state house lawn in the shade while people bustle all around us.

There are many events before the USATF 5K championship. The atmosphere is that of a high school cross country race. Many actual high school teams have their camps set up. The energetic kids don't know how to restrain their energy and so they chase each other or toss footballs or form a circle and keep beach balls aloft using only head butts. A band sets up on a pavilion and people wait in line for the porta-johns. After the 5k there's a fun run with a best costume prize so girls dressed as crayola crayons, boys dressed as cheerleaders, at least two people in banana suits, and one kid dressed as a wheaties box wander around.

The six GVHers sprawl out on the ground. We stretch a bit, semi-discretely ogle fast-looking women in spandex, and chat about our primary competition, the Syracuse Chargers. The Chargers have been on a recruiting binge and somehow managed to lure Ted Turner, C. Fred Joslyn, Jeff Beck, Justin Wood, Nicholas Stenuf, and others, pretty much all in the past year. Although I'm realistic about our chances of beating a team stuffed full of All Americans and sub-15 5k runners, I'm personally feeling pumped up for this race. Most of these guys are right in my range. Fred and Jeff aren't competing this day, but as for the others, I'm primed for an epic shoulder to shoulder battle.

A few of my former Williams teammates are also present including Brown university grad students Diana Davis and Dan Klein. Former Williams assistant coach Karina Johnson is running despite injury, as is 1500m phenom Macklin Chaffee who I had been instructed to "beat for us distance guys" by another Williams runner.

Fall weather has been upon us for a couple weeks now and it's beautiful: cold nights and cool sunny days. As we sit in the shade and listen to the jokster-announcer whose every word is improved by his accent, the sky overhead is uniformly blue from horizon to horizon. A light breeze ruffles the leaves. It's a great day for lounging in a hammock, but we don't let that get to us.

Time passes and after two or more trips to the bathroom it is time for a warm up. We jog most of the last mile and a half of the race course and then double back. There's still a little over thirty minutes to race start, but I'm comfortable erring on the side of caution after last week. We chill out a bit more then do some easy strides and move to the line.

I'm a bit surprised that I'm able to get a spot on the starting line with no one in front of me, because the likes of Matt Tegenkamp are in this race. He recently ran a 12:58 5K. Yeah, digest that for a moment. In any case, I somehow start right on the line and it's just like good old college times. Ted Turner is on my right. Mack Chaffee is nearby. One of the fastest women in the US is touching my left elbow. Okay, it's not exactly like college.

There is precisely zero delay between "set" and "go". Then we're moving, flying off the line, adrenalized and out of control. Everyone is sprinting. When we hit the steep down hill, barely 200 meters in, the pace actually slows because we were moving so overly fast off the line. The down hill, which seemed like such a significant landmark, is here and gone before I know it. There are runners all around me, but there is no jostling. The course curves right, sending the mass of bodies crushing to my side. One guy ahead of me kicks an orange cone, but otherwise the race rolls forward smoothly, a controlled stampede.

We ascend the first up hill and it feels like flat ground beneath my feet. This is where I had planned to be smart, hold back a little energy to unleash later on foolish runners who expended too much energy early. This does not happen. Blame it on the sight of Mack and Ted just ahead of me. Blame it on the sight of a woman shockingly pushing past me at well below the women's world record pace. Blame it on the excitement of the moment.

The course loops back down towards downtown Providence forming a pleasing parabola on the course map. The fast woman drops back like a rock with a lead parachute. I lose sight of Ted in the chaos of bodies, but Mack is clearly ahead of me.

Mile one flashes past in a sole burning 4:35, ten seconds faster than I had planned to push, five seconds faster than I had reasonably hoped to run. I'm on pace for an all time best. I choose to back off a bit in mile two. It's hardly a conscious choice. 4:35 scared me. It's so obviously too fast. Fontana told me afterward he was surprised. He had planned to hang with me as long as possible, knowing that I prefer to go out conservatively, but I was gone before he had a chance.

I pull back and the lead pack surges ahead. Two stragglers drift into the wake of the twenty five man cannon ball. It becomes clear that these two ahead of me are going to drop their life line to the leaders. A gap is going to open up if I don't do something soon. This is not at all what I expected.

I expected five, maybe ten elite runners rocking the sub-14 minute wagon, then fifteen to twenty more runners all around my pace. I expected to be drafting and letting myself be effortlessly carried before outkicking hordes on the demoralizing up hill before the finish. I had hoped to beat all the Syracuse Chargers, Mack, and edge into the top twenty. I estimate there are thirty runners ahead of me, Mack is definitely up there, and I thought I saw Ted Turner's green jersey. The pack is so dense, it's hard to make out individuals.

Mile two has two long, flat straight-aways so I nudge my pace faster. I pass one of the stragglers, then the other, drifting past ever so slowly. They want to come with me, but they have already spent beyond their means.

Two sharp lefts swing me around onto the next long stretch. This is do or die territory. I find myself in no man's land. I've got no one to help me move up.

The second mile mark comes up suddenly. The clock says 8:15. The race time is accurate, but the placing of the "two mile mark" is early. In fact, it's so horrendously wrong that I don't waste a second thought on it. Later I will joke that I ran my second mile in a world record 3:30.

I'm hardly past the midway point and already I'm caught between the rock of needing more real estate to catch people and the hard place of urgent fatigue snaking through my legs. I keep pushing the pace, but only so much. Team placing is based on cumulative time, not place, so ruining my finishing kick is acceptable. Crashing and burning, however, would devastate our team's chances.

The straight-away ends with a tiny down hill and two sharp lefts to point me back towards downtown. Despite the "two mile mark" I know from scouting the course the day before that three-quarters of a mile remain.

One guy has fallen off the lead pack's pace. Just one. I'm accustomed to handfuls of over-eager runners losing strength in the final mile, but it simply did not happen with the top twenty-five here. Later I'll wonder if I should have tried to cling on to the lead pack longer instead of easing off to attack again later.

In any case, I set sights on the one guy coming back to me. I pass him before a half mile remaining and he latches on to me. My legs are so heavy. The final up hill looms in my mind. I'm less worried about this one guy than all the people behind him if I start crawling up the hill.

The guy passes me back and I follow him into the final turn. 300 meters remaining. I surge up the hill, head down, arms pumping. It's hardly the most impressive acceleration. To the spectators I'm sure I looked like a clunky marionnette with wooden legs lifted by flimsy strings and dropped to the pavement by gravity alone, but it's more than this other guy can handle and I speed past him. I pass mile three. Point one of a mile remains and this is a shockingly long distance but I sprint with every ounce of energy I've got. My eyes never leave that clock above the finish line. It ticks by unfairly fast. 14:22, my personal best, passes and suddenly the time is in the upper thirties. I push across the line in 14:43.

I'm able to keep upright after the race and quickly hydrate. I find myself bursting with excited energy, as if my body had stocked up enough adrenaline for another half marathon and then confusedly doled it out after the 5k ended. Maybe I could have given more in the race. Many of my teammates express similar beliefs about their own performances despite season's best times all around, but I don't think I could have, not the way I ran it. Maybe I could have backed off the pace in the first mile and run faster. Or, maybe I could have held on to the fast pace longer and drafted off the pack for a better time, but the way the race unfolded I don't think I could have run faster. All my energy afterward was in my head, none in my legs.

I chatted with Karina and Diana after the race, but soon found my calves urging me towards a cool down. The rest of the GVH team finished soon after me. We gathered and went on a cooldown, passing by the second mile marker and mocking it relentlessly. Almost all of us ran our best 5k times in a year (and everyone PR'ed in the second mile) though many had hoped for a little bit more. After finishing the cooldown we changed into more cushioned shoes and ate pizza and trail mix until we felt sick.

When the results were posted we got a better view of how the race had actually transpired. I had overestimated the number of runners in the pack ahead of me. There had been only twenty five. I passed one for twenty fifth place. Mack was ahead of me. He ran 14:29 for 22nd place. Ted was behind me. The Chargers clustered their top five around 15 flat so they still beat our team handily by time, but we put a nice minute thirty buffer between ourselves and third place Willow Street Athletic Club.

GVH's finishers were:

Name	Time	Place
Neal Holtschulte	14:43	25
Fontana Fluke	15:09	38
Jordan Zwick	15:31	50
Dan Moore	16:07	61
Chris Hine	16:12	64
Andy Crawford	16:38	80

On the line I asked Mack how fast he thought he would run. He said he had no idea. This was only the second 5k he had ever run. Then he went out and blazed a 14:29. I remember when he was just a freshman from Cleveland who needed to be distinguished from the other Mack on the team by an annoying nickname. Morgan noted, "macklin is turning into a monster" and I had to laugh at that because the other GVH guys and I watched The Hulk in our hotel room the night before the race.

Don't make Mack angry! You wouldn't like Mack when he's angry!

The trip to Providence, despite the rough start, was a great experience. We were all lucky to attend. Leading up to the race it was unclear whether we would go at all and then it seemed increasingly unlikely that we would be able to field a scoring team. In the eleventh hour Hine, Moore, and Zwick (who flew up from Florida) came through to round out our team. I want to thank you, my teammates who made this possible, as well as the GVH board members who supported our excursion financially.

Race homepage

Results

USATF Team results

FloTrack does Race Results right, and I'm not just saying that because I get a shout out in the video. The video is great. It makes you feel like you were there. Mack gets a shout out too and Jordan gets lots of screen time with the Elite women. Alright!

Video of the local news on the race. Sadly it's pretty lame since the reporters think it's more interesting to interview spectators than to watch the race. You can glimpse me for almost one second at exactly 12 seconds in. If you pause it there, you'll see me in the center, Ted Turner on the far left of the screen (my right side), and Jordan Zwick just behind my left shoulder. I recommend saving yourself some time and watching the video starting from 16:20 to see the close finish.

Photos are here. I would post them, but they are all copyrighted. Also you have to type in the last name of the athlete you want to view.

More Pics (thanks Mack):
Neal: 1 2
Jordan: 1
Dan: 1 2
Fontana: 1
Karina: 1

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