Who Bothers With a 2 Mile Race These Days? Answer: Me

I really don't recall reading a blog out there in blog land that talks about running a 2 mile race.  The shortest distance I remember reading about are 5ks.  My theory is most runners serious enough to blog are also serious enough to target a race that lasts longer than what it takes them to drive/walk to the starting line, and let's face it, 2 miles is barely a warm up to a (half) marathoner.  I don't even bother doing training runs under 5 or 6 miles, except at the end of a taper (or unless I'm late).

So what am I doing running a 2 mile race?  The short answer is I got into a habit of doing one per year, particularly this one. There are other reasons like, I try to PR, I can recover quickly, and the probability of an age group award goes up as the distance goes down.  Besides, it can still be a challenge trying to maintain a stride that's about 2 minutes per mile faster than my marathon pace.

Saturday I ran the Easter SunRun here in Wichita.  Before the 2 mile race, there was a 10k, which I believe thinned out the pool for the 2 miler.  What I'm foreshadowing is, a lot of the runners who can run faster than me opt to run the 10k instead.

There is not a lot to talk about during the race.  The weather was near ideal:  Fifty degree temps with cloudy skies, but a bit of wind out of the North.  It was a loop course, and the wind was nice to have at my back for the last part, but that didn't make up for running into the wind the first mile.

Who has really tried and actually raced 2 miles before?  It is some of the most painful running I do.  My heart rate goes through the roof right from the start.  In fact, I'll include my HR chart from the race:

As you can see, my HR hits 180 within 2 minutes of the start, and tops out at over 200.  I don't usually have reason to mention it much, but I've got a combination of allergies and asthma, and about the halfway point, I felt them both starting to act up on me.  After the race was over, I couldn't get back to the car fast enough to take a few puffs from my inhaler and blow my congested nose.  I was disappointed to find there were more of my wife's maxi pads (∞) than Kleenexes (1) in all my car's compartments, WTF.  I wonder if feminine hygiene products make good facial tissues?   So that was one more adversary I had to deal with that day.  (BTW, if you know what the "∞" symbol is, you might be a nerd)

I digress, so back to the race...  I was up far enough in the race that the runners were pretty spread out.  In the last mile, I managed to pass a couple dudes, and even pull a reverse chick without being passed myself.  Down the home stretch, I was all alone, so no drama there, but I did have some kick left, so I tried to shave an extra second or two off my final time.  My Garmin says I finished in 12:14, but the official results think it's more like 12:22.  My race stats:

2Slow4Boston Easter SunRun 2M
Chip Time	12:22
Overall Place	10/834
Age Group	1/34
Average Pace	6:11

Notice, contrary to 2Slow4Boston's style,  I placed 1st in my age group, so for my troubles, I received a medal:

My fingernails don't look half bad for a guy.

One of the draws of the Easter SunRun is post race food.  Hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, chips, potato salad, cookies are all standard fare.  You don't even have to have a bib number to partake.

Tons of volunteers and several serving lines to handle the hungry crowd.

About 4 tables full of mostly home made cookies to choose from.

One last thing.  I wrote a blog post about a week ago, that never showed up in the blogger list/dashboard/reader, so I'm going to back link to it in case you're going through 2Slow4Boston withdrawal, you feel sorry for me, you need more blogs to read, you care ☺.  To paraphrase, I blogged about getting into the Pikes Peak Ascent and my training.