Race Report: St. Paddy's Day-ish 5k

Photo Credit: MV Times

This last Sunday (March 26th) was the St. Paddy's Day-ish, a Vineyard tradition and the customary first 5k of the island road racing season. In addition to being the first road race of the season it was also the first race of any sort for the Hurricanes Youth XC Club (see my earlier article on coaching youth runners), and exciting opportunity to gauge the kids' fitness leading into the spring track and road seasons. And finally it was an excellent fundraiser for the High School Track and XC programs.

Male Overall winner Rene Da Silva Photo Credit: MV Times

The race itself was a small event as island road races go with 66 finishers. The high school track teams and the Hurricanes both brought strong contingents to the race with the two groups filling out most of the top 20 positions. Rene Da Silva, my often times training partner won the men's overall race with a time of 17:58 and I followed him in for 2nd place in a time of 18:36 (more on that slow time later). Catherine Cherry, a graduate of the Hurricanes program and a stand out on the high school track team won the women's overall race in a time of 21:35, a fast time for a mid-training cycle race. I would also like to mention my co-coach Reean Steenkamp's fourth place finish in a time of 19:56.

Female Overall winner Catherine Cherry Photo Credit: MV Times

The St. Paddy's Day-ish 5k runs along the same course used for the Martha's Vineyard Hospital 5k which is held every August. The course which is currently not USATF certified, but which has previously been measured, starts at Washington park, runs though the East Chop neighborhood before descending onto East Chop Dr. and then following the coast back along East Chop Dr. back to Washington Park for the finish. The course is one of the more challenging on the island due to the presence of several significant hills and the always strong winds along East Chop Dr. The difficulty of the course coupled with it's early timing in the season and minimal competition means that fast times are rarely clocked at the event and this year was no different.

As for my race, I chose to run the race as an easy tempo, coming as it was at the end of a 75 mile training week, and given that I was running the race for the purpose of supporting the Hurricanes and not for the actual racing. Despite the slow time (18:36) I was pleased with my race as it was my first extended run of at any reasonably fast pace since hurting my foot at the MV 20 Miler in February. I started the race well in the back and ran the first few hundred meters with a few of the kids I coach in order to monitor for the inevitable sprinting starts that young runners are so prone to. Following the first 400-ish meters with our young runners I moved up in the field to run with Reean for the first 1.5 miles where I again decided to move up the field and catch up with third place finisher Aivaras Gedviles who I managed to catch by around the 2 mile mark and then hung with for the next half mile or so before moving up again to take second place. By the finish I could see Rene again up in the front but never once challenged his lead. My goal for the race was to run a progressive tempo and moving up through the field progressively throughout the race did the job nicely.

Coming away from the race I was feeling pretty good about my fitness, 18:36 is by no means a fast time or even nearing a normal race paced effort for me, however it is generally fast enough that I can feel the strain of the effort, however on the day of the race it felt like walking compared with other efforts at similar effort have felt. My hope it that the training I've been doing recently has been making a difference in my fitness and that the ease with which I ran was an indication of that progress. I guess we'll see in a few weeks when I get into the meat of the racing season.