2011 KC Corporate Challenge -- Volume 1

Before too much more time goes by and my journaling descends down into the depressive abyss of injury, loss, surgery and rehabilitation, it would be good to write down my thoughts about KC Corporate Challenge, putting together some race reports about my personally very meaningful victories in those events.  Last year when KCCC rolled around I was just turning the corner after a year of recovery from my ACL reconstruction in 2009 and the running was just starting to really come back to me.  I raced the 5k and finished (17:46) second in my age group to another Garmin guy and felt pretty good about that.  Then two or three weeks later I raced the 800m and the Mile, finishing second in those races, each to a different opponent.  It was satisfying to medal in all those races and put up some ostentatious points for Garmin in the process, but afterwards I concluded that I just wasn’t running to win like I should.  I was wimping out at the ends of races, not closing the deal, and I made it a goal shortly thereafter that in 2011, God willing, there would be no more silver medals.

Fast forwarding a year through five personal records at three distances I came into the KCCC events this year with a pretty good level of fitness and a fierce desire to win my races in spite of my fairly significant knee injury, the extent of which I would only learn the morning of my Mile.  I’ll start these reports with a quick one about the 5k.

May 7.  KCCC 5k.

The KCCC course is pretty darn tough.  The first mile is almost all downhill, but that is more than made up for by the fact that the second mile is predominantly uphill and the third mile is rolling and finishes up a hill that has to be a good 600m long with 100 feet of gain.  I ran under control the beginning of the race and felt pretty good, but I was surprised to still be in contact with the leaders after 1200m or so.  Then they took off!  It was okay because I didn’t expect to be able to stay with the guys who would be running under 16:00.  As we made the big hill climb in the second mile I used the opportunity to power past three guys.  A couple of them made moves to go with me but faded back as I continued to surge.  But then there was that next guy!  By about the halfway point I took him, but he went along.  Then he took me back.  Then I took him back.  Then we settled into something of a truce by the time we came through the 2-mile point.  We pushed each other through most of the second mile, but when we reached the final uphill I gave it up and let him go.  Or maybe he took it from me.  Either way, I finished in 7^th place overall behind my fellow duelist by about 3 seconds in 17:06 (gun time).  Later, in the track meet, this same guy (9 years younger than I) would run a 2:01 800m, and I think he ran his mile race in the 4:30s.  Wow.  I guess I don’t understand why he wasn’t under 16:00 with the other fast guys where he belonged – maybe he was having a bad day.  Maybe he’s just not a distance guy and I would have buried him at a longer distance.  Who knows?  Anyway, he beat me by a smidge.

In the final analysis I am a little disappointed that I didn’t fight harder and beat that guy.  My race was still enough to win my age group decisively and make me the fastest guy in any over-40 age group.  It was fun, too, and I had my first Corporate Challenge gold – one third of the way to my goal of no more silver medals.