R and J in the USA

September 7, 2024

After finishing our Minnesota 5K and driving two hours, we arrived in Grand Forks in time to pick up our race packets and have a decent warmup for our second 5K of the morning. Three hours and fifteen minutes after lining up for the Minnesota 5K, we stepped to the starting line of the Home Run 5K in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The Home Run is an annual event put on by the Northlands Rescue Mission. Located in downtown Grand Forks, the Northlands Rescue Mission is an emergency shelter empowering people experiencing homelessness, housing instability, or food insecurity to live more stable lives. The Mission’s goal is to give men, women, and families access to the resources and support they need to find permanent housing. Their advocacy team assists with transportation, housing and job applications, I.D.s and birth certificates, financial barriers to housing, addiction support, and more. The Mission helps more than two hundred people find permanent homes each year. Proceeds from the Home Run, which includes a 5K run and a 25-mile bike race, are used to support the Mission’s work.

The 5K was a small, youthful race. Most of the 41 runners were college students and people in their early to mid-twenties. And it was a nice event. The sunny weather, the good cause, the size of the field, the dedication of the organizers, and the enthusiasm of the participants combined to create friendly, upbeat atmosphere.

The course was an out and back that ran mostly along a paved path with curves and gentle hills through a riverside park paralleling the Red River of the North. The path was not shut down for the race, so racers had to navigate the occasional Saturday morning strollers, joggers, and cyclists.

The race ran two blocks on a city street, straight through the T intersection at the end of the street, across the sidewalk, onto the grass, up and over the levee, down the grass on the other side, then turned right onto the paved park path. The wrinkle is that the spot where runners turned off of the grass and onto the paved path wasn’t marked, and there was no race staff posted there to tell runners where to turn. This was no problem on the way out, as we knew to turn right on the park path. It presented a bit of a challenge on the way back, though, as there was nothing indicating where to turn onto the grass to go up and over the levee toward the finish line. And the levee blocked the view of the finish line area from the path. You had to remember where the turn was, or make your best guess, and hope to see familiar sights upon cresting the levee. In the end, all the runners made it back to where they started, though some may have taken a more direct line than others.

Ryan turned in his fastest race of the trip so far, finishing 2^nd overall out of 41, and 1^st among male runners. Julie finished 9^th overall and was the 4^th female finisher. Full results here.

Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds

We had both done a fairly decent job taking it easy in our Detroit Lakes race. With that 5K behind us, followed immediately by the two hour drive north to Grand Forks, we were both ready to go for run number two. It was a very small field and a nice counterbalance to the mass of runners in Minnesota. The casual vibe was just right. 

Julie started the race out at a very casual 9:05 pace thinking she was getting warmed up. Nope. Her second mile was a 9:26, and she was hurting running it at a 176 heart rate. She loosened up by mile 3 to an 8:58, but by that point, she was holding an average 181 heart rate for the mile. She was pretty close to cooked.

The water stop at the turnaround, funnily, was not a water stop. It was two young women at a table with a cooler in front of them. The cooler had in it full bottles of Gatorade. Julie was thirsty and knew she wouldn’t be breaking any speed records, so she grabbed one and ran the second half of the race holding a full bottle of Gatorade! Every once in a while, she’d stop to take a sip and then pick up the pace until the next stop to take another sip.

As she came past the 3 mile point, she decided not to put the pick-up in because she was tired. That is when the girl that had been running behind her for a long while pulled a Julie and picked it up BIG TIME. Usually, Julie would have this on lock down. As they came down the stretch to the race, the girl picked it up more and Julie picked it up right alongside her determined not to let her do “a Julie” to Julie. But Julie’s tank was officially on E. Usually able to run the last 0.12 miles at a 5:50 – 6:20 pace, this time, she couldn’t run it faster than 8:29. For the first time in a very, very long time, she had zero juice left for a kick.

Julie surrendered with her hat off to the girl as she proceeded to overtake Julie to the finish line. Later, at the awards ceremony, this girl won 3rd female overall and Julie was kicking herself! It was a small field, but still, she had had it right in her hands. But also, she really didn’t, so she cheered for the girl who earned it. It’s these completely inconsequential dramas that have no actual real life impact or stakes that Julie enjoys engaging in like they do. It’s all part of the fun.

As for Ryan, well, he had saved all of his juice and was ready to go and get it. Despite the fact that he hadn’t run more than 3.12 miles in one day in a very, very long time, his Superman fitness was unaffected and was ready to take down this second 5K of the morning as if he’d done it a thousand times.

When the race started, Julie had a pretty strong sense that Ryan was going to be in an overall winning spot. One of the guys who might have been a contender was an enthusiastic University of North Dakota student who played football and was excitedly sharing with us before the race that this would be his first race ever. When the race started, Julie saw him burst out of the starting line past Ryan along with one other UND student. She had a pretty strong feeling that wasn’t a pace that was going to last for them. Julie, having run a ton of races and still not being great at picking the right starting pace (outside of a clear and structured training program that brings you to the starting line knowing pretty precisely where you stand and how to run), knew that very few amateur runners are as good as Ryan at starting at the right pace and easing into strong negative splits.

The other person in front of Ryan, however, gave off a completely different vibe. We would learn after the race that she was a former college runner, and it showed right away. She also cruised right out of the gate at a top clip, but with a steadiness and gait that said she did it on purpose. And that she did. She smoked everyone, running fast from the start and not letting up until the finish line. No one ever came near her.

Julie heard her talking to her friends afterwards that she had considered doing the Detroit Lakes 5K instead. Out of curiosity, Julie checked the results, and with her 20:01 finish, she would have taken first place female if she had. Either way, she took first place overall in this race.

Late in the first mile Ryan could see the leader. He was in 4^th place at the time, but knew he would eventually pass the runners currently in 2^nd and 3^rd place. He calculated whether or not it was realistic to catch the front-runner, so he could decide whether to keep running the pace he wanted to or to pick it up in an effort to go after first place. If he was within a certain distance of the leader and the gap was decreasing, he would have felt obligated to go after it, even if he didn’t want to.

Late in the first mile he was about thirty seconds behind the leader. When he reached the turnaround, he was a minute and thirty seconds behind her. He knew he wouldn’t be catching the her no matter how he ran the rest of the race. He gradually picked up his pace throughout the remainder of the race, and the leader kept widening the gap. In the end, she finished two minutes and twenty seconds ahead of him.

With his steady pacing, he hung in fourth place behind the ultimate winner and the two UND students until about mile 2, when the two students ran out of juice and he was just getting loosened up. He ran his fastest race of the trip (for now!) and took first place male!  Julie was beaming with pride when his name was called at the awards ceremony. Way to go Ryan! Oh, and incidentally, Ryan 11 – Julie 8.