November 3, 2024
We still don’t have an answer for the Baha Men, but we know what race we ran: the Who Let the Dogs Out 5K in Wichita, Kansas.
The Who Let the Dogs Out 5K supports Spay Neuter Kansas, which provides low cost spay/neuter surgeries for dogs and cats of low-income pet owners who otherwise could not afford to have that done for their pet.
This was very much a dog-focused event. At least three quarters of the runners ran the race with their dogs. There were snacks for the dogs after the race in addition to the usual snacks for human runners. Toys were given to each dog finisher in addition to the standard medal being given to each human finisher. The top two finishers were dogs (along with the people who ran with them).
The dog-centric nature of the race was fun for the dogs and dog owners who participated, but not so fun for other dog and dog owners in the area. A woman out for a walk who was not part of the race had to restrain her dog, who was barking forcefully and lunging at the first two dogs in the race as they ran by. She gave an ‘oh great’ smile when Ryan told her there would be a whole bunch more dogs coming along.
This was our second 5K of the weekend, having run our Nebraska race the day before. This was the second (or possibly third) time on this trip that we’ve done two in two days (in addition to the two races on the same day in Minnesota and North Dakota). Julie made it through unscathed. Ryan paid a price (see the Detailed Race report below for info on that).
The course unfolded along a single clockwise loop, with some lefts and rights within that loop, on a paved path in the southwest corner Sedgwick County Park.
Julie finished 2nd of 16 in her age group, 7th of 59 females, and 15th of 82 overall. Ryan finished 4th of 82 overall, coming in behind three women and two dogs, and was 1st of 23 males.
Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds
We headed into our second race for the weekend with much the same goals as our day before. Julie’s goal was to take it even easier, and she found a woman early on in the race that she used to force herself to go slower than her legs wanted to go. Once again, her legs hardly felt like they were doing anything, but her cardio fitness revealed its limitation. She was able to keep her average heart rate to 170. Not terrible, not nearly as low as she hoped, but she just couldn’t bear running any slower. As long as she got her negative splits, she was happy. She clocked in a gentle 9:49 for lap 1, a 9:39 for lap 2 and a 9:25 for lap 3 for a total of 29:48. Julie was finding it mildly painful to have so many times at this pace, but also knew it was important if she wanted to regain her cardio fitness at some point. She wasn’t expecting to get an award at that pace, but the race, at least in her age group was not overly competitive, and she walked away with 2nd place in her age group.
Ryan had an eventful race. He was the 1st overall male and may have placed first overall if it weren’t for an old injury that became a new one somewhere in mile 3 (though, still, with an injury in place, he was 4th overall).
He had known that he needed to be careful coming into the race. Both of his calves had been tight after the previous day’s race, and he was feeling the soreness pre-race. He realized later that, with all the of the routines we had both fallen behind on while putting so much energy into catching up on the blog, he had neglected his daily stretching routine for the past several weeks. It seems the impact of that dormant habit was becoming known.
He started the race with a plan to take it easy. He felt the soreness and tightness in both of his calves in the first few miles, especially in his right calf. He could tell it was more than run of the mill soreness, but it wasn’t getting worse early in the run, so he kept going. It felt manageable. Right at the two mile mark, coming out of a turn, he felt his right calf muscle pull. He knew it was not good. He pulled up right away to a slow jog. In the last mile he went really slow (for him), stopping to massage it a few times. His “slow” mile clocked in at an 8:38. He tried to jog that last mile in a manner that put as little stress as possible on it. His first mile was a 7:44 and his second was a 7:22. The injury resulted in a third mile that was a minute and sixteen seconds slower than the second. It also resulted in his first race of the trip without negative splits.
He was limping the rest of the day. Luckily, we had massage rollers and recovery boots, and miraculous muscle recovery stuff that Julie bought at the Iowa State Fair that had gotten rid of her resurgent wrist problem after only a few days of applying it. He is now stretching regularly, using the boots, and applying the miracle lube on his calf twice daily. Hopefully, he’ll see a recovery soon.
Upon reflection, he realized he didn’t stick to his plan for the race. He had felt the soreness leading up to it and had planned to run an even 8:00 minute miles for the duration, really taking it easy. But, it was a smallish race, and he got greedy. He knew the race would be slow enough that 1st place overall was within his reach. He let himself get sucked into that, running fast enough to be within reach of the first place runner at the end of mile 2, with the intention of reeling her in in mile three. That was the immediate cause of the injury. The absence of his usual 15-minute morning stretching routine, plus one or two other stretching sessions during the day, was probably the more guilty culprit.
He still delivered a decent race and we both had a good time trying to figure out who let the dogs out.
R and J in the USA 
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