R and J in the USA

December 8, 2024

It was a weekend of Christmasy desert 5Ks. After running the Santa Paws 5K in Palm Springs, California, the day before, we ran the Run Run Rudolph 5K in Peoria, Arizona. And how did it play in Peoria? Smooth and easy under a bright blue sky, with a wavy line of Christmas green from runners in their long sleeve race shirts.

The race started and finished at the Peoria Sports Complex, the spring training home of the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres with a 12,000 seat stadium and 12 practice fields. Proceeds from the event benefit Ryan House, which provides quality of life and continuity of care for children and families of children with life-limiting or end-of-life journeys. The race also served as a drop-off location for Phoenix Toys for Tots, which provides Christmas gifts for children in Maricopa County.

The course was a relatively flat out and back along roads and a paved recreation path. The main hill was an incline from street and overpass level down to the creekside trail below on the way out, and up again on the way back.

Having run a 5K the day before, we both decided to run a nice, relaxed race, and we both relaxed our way into 2^nd place age group finishes – a one place jump from the day before, when we both finished 3^rd in our age groups. Julie was 2^nd of 21 in her age group, 18^th of 290 females, and 61^st of 435 overall. Ryan was 2^nd of 7 in his age group, 39^th of 145 males, and 51^st of 435 overall.

This was a race for the young guns, as six of the top seven runners were teenagers – including the top three. The overall winner came in at 17:27. On the women’s side, three of the top five finishers were teenagers – including the top female finisher, who crossed the line in 22:32 and was 14^th overall.

Full results here.

Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds

Having just run a race the day before, Ryan approached this 5K as a Sunday morning jog. It was reminiscent of the trip’s early 5Ks, when he ran at a relaxed pace with no concern for how fast he was going. This casual approach resulted in him running over a minute slower per mile than in recent races, and being perfectly fine with that.

The slower pace put him in a different place in the field than usual. The first wave of runners typically consists of the fast and serious. The second group consists of the serious and solid, but not quite the upper echelon. Ryan is often in that next group – respectable, and decent for a middle-aged civilian, but not jumping off the page. Today’s more relaxed pace put him in a more mixed part of the field, a mixture of the serious but not overly fast, the moderately serious, the casual, and the less experienced, which is how he found himself neck and neck with a trio of ten-year-olds at the one-mile mark.

In a sign that his ego may be maturing, when he found out he placed 2^nd in his age group, his initial reaction was, “Well that’s a nice surprise,” instead of, “How close was I to 1^st place?”

In addition to feeling some muscle tiredness from the day before, Julie’s calves were acting up, so she wanted to be nice to them. She also wanted to run negative splits, which is a goal of hers in every race.

She started out strong on both fronts, running a 9:03 first mile and an 8:56 second mile, feeling strong and solid in the process. As mile three began, however, her calves and heart rate began speaking up. Despite a late mile surge, she clocked an 8:59 third mile, kiboshing her goals of negative splits and easy miles. Still, she finished the day feeling energized by the sunny day run.

Julie thought it would be fun to write a narrative of her race experience in the style of the multi-billion dollar movie franchise Inside Out, or for those of us from the 20^th century, the less lucrative, less flashy, but still entertaining, Herman’s Head. You can find that here.