Too-hard 5k : it's Floyd Landis' fault

For one exultant moment I thought I'd won the whole thing -- if only because the three runners ahead of me were running the 1ok and so had another lap to go.

But no. I got beaten into third place -- by a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old!

Tne good news, the really good news, is that it HURT. And for that I have Floyd Landis to thank.

Yeah, the Tour de France winner has been giving me personal training advice. Right. Well, as good as. For the last few weeks (months?), I've been struggling, afraid to really get into it. Last night I was reading Floyd's new book (an instant best-seller, by the way): Positively False. I got to a passage where he describes the truly epic mountain solo ride that was to win the Tour, the ride that came the day after he had cracked spectacularly and slumped from yellow jersey to 11th overnight. One lesson there already: we all have bad days. But this is the passage that pulled me out of my own personal head-slump:

"It's not just that my legs hurt or that my lungs seared with the effort. Those are givens. But when you push your body past a certain point, you enter a whole different area of pain where you can barely will yourself to go on, and it feels like the more you think about it, the less you even care about pushing."

And here am I, scared of a little "discomfort". This bloke puts up with it for hours, for 100 miles. I'm looking at 3 miles, over in something less than 20 minutes. Time to get real.

So lining up at the Federal Center in Lakewood for the start of the Blockbuster 5k, I was scared -- and determined to feel my lungs searing and my legs hurting. I'd programmed it in that this was "normal".

It all went terrifically well, if not with quite the same intensity as one of the best bike-riders in the world riding to win the Tour. I went haring off after the two bare-chested teens; there was only one other runner to go with us, I could hear by a steady pitter-patter just behind me.

Last year I took second in this race in 18-something; I wanted to see how this year's performance compared. Shock number one: it was a different course. Shock 2: it started downhill and -- horror -- was going to finish up that same slope. Shock 3: very hot. A day for suffering.

My Garmin thought so too. Just before the mile mark, it was telling me we were on 5:45 pace. But then it started bleeping wildly: database full, so no laps times for me. First time this has ever happened. The only way to shut it up was to turn it off.

After sluicing through the first mile in something like 5:40, by now well adrift of the boys and still with my pitter-patter shadow, I was suffering nicely but still in control. Cutting the apex of the bends, I had to risk cutting up the runner behind me, who I now noticed was a woman; she was showing no inclination to take a turn at the front.

I got a better look at her just after the two-mile mark, when my world turned a subtle shade of wet sand as we began the long uphill drag to the finish. She came past and started drawing slowly away. I threw in surges to close the gap a couple of times and that was it: when I started dry heaving, I knew I had to just let her go and focus on getting to the finish, rather than racing.

You know the feeling, I'm sure: you're running through sludge, you're out on your own with three-quarters of a mile to go... you're hallucinating that you can see the finish line, you're ticking off each yard... and all the time DREADING the sound of feet behind you.

Luckily I held out. As I staggered into the finish line, announcer/timer Aimee Durden added to the normal "Good job!" by sharing the fact that I'd been chasing a 16-year-old :)

Bean Wrenn, the woman in front of me, was delighted to hear that, she told me later. She's 34 and has three children! What's worse, she was running the 10k, so kept going at the same pace that stuffed me for another 3 miles to win that event outright in 37:51, which is a great time on that course.

So: yes, won the age group. Time not that fine: 19:26, compared to the 17:17 of the winner. And yes, slower -- much -- than last year. But, thanks to Floyd, I count this one as a total success.

* While I was reading his book and getting inspired, Floyd The Man was racing just "up the road" in Vail this weekend, at the Teva Leadville trail race -- 50 miles out and back on trails and tracks. He fell off but still took second in one of the first serious tests of his new hip replacement. Story and comments on Topix here and on Trust but verify", which also has all the latest news on Floyd's battle with the extremely weird folks who run professional cycling's dope testing "system" (I use the word advisedly).

* Blockbuster 5k results were almost instantly posted on the Boulder Road Runners site here with the normal speed and efficiency of Benji and Aimee Durden's exemplary timing service. Wish they were all like that. Thanks guys.