December 7, 2024
It was a bright, blue sky Saturday morning in Palm Springs, California, for the Santa Paws 5K, and there were plenty of Santas and paws.
Scores of runners in the field of 467 ran in the Santa suits given out by the race organizers, creating an undulating wave of white-fringed red along the course. Those Santas, along with the non-Santa racers, were joined in the race by dozens of dogs, there to join in the spirit of the race’s cause – Guide Dogs of the Desert. Guide Dogs of the Desert is a charity that provides trained guide dogs at no cost for the blind and sight impaired as well as assistance dogs for those with seizures, autism, or PTSD.
Despite it being December, the southern California climate made this our first 5K with short sleeves weather in about a dozen states. The race time temperature was 60 degrees and rising under a desert sun, and steadily warmed up to about 70 degrees by the end of the race. Though the temperature was comfortable, the intensity of the low latitude sun made itself known as the race went on, making the occasional patches of shade welcome respites.
The course was a counterclockwise meander through Palm Springs’s Las Palmas neighborhood. It was billed as a mostly flat 5K, but was in reality a rarely level 4.75K. Still, it was a nice course. It had turns and curves, gradual inclines that made you work, a short but legitimate uphill that really made you work, and a gravity-assisted boost at the end.
Julie and Ryan both finished 3rd in their age group. Julie was 3rd of 21 in hers, and Ryan was 3rd of 11 in his. Julie came in 36th of 273 females and 110th of 467 overall. Ryan came in 33rd of 194 males and 37th out of 467 overall.
The race overall had a few serious runners. The top finisher crossed the line in under 16 minutes, and the top nine finishers came in under 19 minutes. The top female finished in 19:17, and was 11th overall.
Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds
Well, if there is one life lesson that we’ve learned over our decades that’s pretty reliable, it is this. Always ignore early warning signs. How boring would life be if we took note of life’s red flags and heeded their warnings in order to maintain the best course of action? It is in keeping with that mantra that Julie noticed and promptly decided to ignore the familiar soreness in her calves that she felt upon first rising out of bed the morning of the race. Once solving the major mystery and riddle of her once ailing calves/shins over a year ago, she had begun to think them now invincible. Another great life lesson – once you solve a problem, it will never sneak up again, ever, so go about your business. And, she was now living high on her newly adjusted thyroid medicine dose that had her feeling like she could fight dragons and leap tall buildings in a single bound. So, even though she started the race with her previous running lessons embodied, and was planning to still take it slow getting back up to her full speed, she did nothing prior to the race nor during the race to tend to the red flag of mild pulsating tightness and pain in her calves – the same one that had knocked her out of running for over a year (and out of significant walking for more than a few months at its outset). Surprisingly – this proved to be a mistake.
Julie’s first mile was strong and she felt the juice to really run. She showed restraint and pulled herself back to ensure a gentle easing back to full form and to ensure that she would have plenty in the tank for negative splits. She finished mile 1 with a 9:07 and plenty of juice left to pick up on that into mile 2.
This is where two factors converged to produce what would be a 10:58 pace for her second mile. First, the aforementioned calf issue, which we will go into further in a moment.
Second, let’s discuss the race course marketing – or shall we call it propaganda? Maybe that is too harsh, but possibly deserved. This course was advertised as a mostly flat course. We are willing to bet money that whomever deemed it so, deemed it so from the inside of a motorized vehicle. A car can easily tackle a mile of consistent uphill without much adieu, so much so that the driver in it may not have noticed the uphill at all. A runner, on the other hand, most certainly will. Let’s be clear – this course was neither “mostly”, nor “flat”. And, lest there be any confusion, a course that has equal parts uphill and downhill does not a flat course make. This is not math where the positives and negatives cancel each other out. This is physics – and in physics, what goes down, must have come up.
Now, let’s get back to Julie’s calves and why they hurt this particular morning. For those of you that have been loyal blog readers, you may recall Julie mentioning her one true fear of dying from stupidity and how she considered this fear of hers to be a healthy evolutionary response to her proclivity for moronacity (don’t worry, no need to cheer Julie up, this is a quality she is, for better or worse, proud to embrace). Well, here comes Evidence Exhibit 5 million B for the court’s consideration. Julie loves power hiking. Julie injured her calves years ago when she ended up power-walking a LOT of miles without having trained for it. So, the injury in her calves is a walking injury, not a running injury. Two days prior to the race, we were in the Channel Islands and went for a lovely 5 mile hike. There was no time pressure or necessity to power hike this lovely trek. But Julie likes power hiking. So she did it and pushed the pace to her max, turning in 17 minute miles over the course of the 5 mile trek. It felt great…then.
And, if it had been just that, it would have been okay. She would have woken up a little sore the next morning, stretched a bit, and then all would have loosened up. However, the next day, we were in Griffith Park in LA and, once again, wanted to go for a hike. We walked 1.7 miles up steep hills. That’s two days in a row of activity that is not super calf friendly for Julie with the remnants of whatever damage she had done long ago still lying dormant deep within. Again, all things that would have been fine. But Julie wasn’t thinking about the 5K early in the next morning. Julie did no stretching, no applying of our magic muscle cream and no running extra EXTRA slow on tired calves. After all, it was a “mostly flat” course. Why not push it just a little further?
Well, somewhere in the midst of the .8 miles of unrelenting uphill during our run, Julie’s calves politely, but in no uncertain terms, told her to go f&%$ herself. Julie obliged and took 2 short walking and stretching breaks to get through the mile. So long negative splits. However, Julie is proud that she did not do what she did years ago and run through the pain when her calves were giving her a piece of their mind. This time, though she had ignored the early warning signals, she heeded the later ones and took care of her calves through that second mile.
As for cardio and fitness, Julie is definitely back in the game. Once the uphill climb had ceased, Julie resumed walking and sailed through the last mile with tons of juice left in the tank, easily running an 8:16 for her last mile. This was the first time in many months that Julie had dipped down to this pace for a mile, so Julie is encouraged and confident that, if she stays on this fitness track and takes the time to tend to her calves when needed, she’ll be back in full race form sometime in the next 10 states, which leaves 10 states at the end to maybe even find a pr in there somewhere. We shall see.
Unlike Julie, who had resumed her 3-4 times per week running schedule, Ryan came into the race having only run one time since our last race in Oregon on November 23rd. And that run was 9 days ago. This appeared to affect his fitness, well, not much at all except for the fact that both his legs and lungs were feeling a little cobwebby during his first mile. He came into the race not trying to be a hero, with 8 minutes miles, once again as his target and still battling a head cold that he came back from Thanksgiving with. He planned to just run based on how he felt and wasn’t going for a fast time. Early in the course, he too noticed that the course wasn’t as flat as advertised. All that said, he still turned in his routine mile 1 pace of 7:43. He also came in unaware of what mile 2 had in store on the course and slowed down to an 8:02. When Ryan came upon the water station at the 2 mile mark, he decided he wanted to get some water because his mouth and throat were feeling dry and he wanted to moisten them both up – even though the water station was all the way to the right hand side of the road at the apex of a left turn. He approached the table and grabbed a cup as he ran by that one of the water station attendants had just put down a few seconds before, presuming that she had just filled it. With gusto, he thrust the contents of an empty cup at his parched face – finding little relief from the splash of air. By that time, he was already 10 strides past the table and didn’t want to stop and go back, already needing to make up for the extra steps he ran to get over to the table to begin with. Despite this clearly premeditated attempt at sabotage by the race volunteers, he managed to finish the race anyhow. (We are, of course, kidding, thank you race volunteers! We appreciate you so much!). Well, we hadn’t done any pantomiming on the trip so far – so that box is now checked.
Ryan finished the final mile with an easy breezy 7:11. He was glad that he decided to wear a short sleeve t-shirt rather than a long sleeve shirt as it warmed up as the race went on. Julie was glad that she decided to wear a long sleeve felt wrap around and felt Santa hat, that somehow did not cause her to overheat, both provided by the race in line with their Santa theme because, temperature be damned – its time to show a little holiday spirit. We were both happy with our clothing choices and enjoyed our rolling hills run on this lovely Palm Springs “mostly flat” course.
R and J in the USA 
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