The Kids Race
I registered my 9 year old daughter, Danielle, for the 400 m kids race. For those of you who don't know me that well, probably don't know that I have a little girl with cerebral palsy, she is severely physically impaired in both arms and legs, quadriplegic. All that being said she basically is a very bright little girl with a body that does not work for her. Her determination is what drives me to keep going....she truly is my inspiration. Did I mention she is Daddy's girl and spoiled and she wants to be involved in everything. We had her in Soccer when she was 5 years old.
Here are some great photos taken by Paul Jordon Photography and my wife Denise from the race. The Photo with Danielle and her medal captures a very special moment. Danielle is so proud....the picture gets me every time I look at it. By the way, she had a blast in the race, she was laughing and wiggling with excitement during the entire run....it was a very special time for all of us. Check out the photo where Dan and I have just passed a bunch of kids, she loved passing people....I have no idea where she gets that from.
The 5 km Road Race
My best 5 km Race is a 20:10, this was mid summer last year. At present, I am about 15 lbs heavier and overcoming a major injury that kept me off training for 12 weeks and more recently a leg injury that won't heal and has kept me off hard running going on 5 weeks. So, all this to say I am not at a high level of fitness. My prediction for the race was sub 22 minutes.
I ran a 22:13 finishing 35th out of 135 runners and 9th out 24 runners in my 40-49 age group. The race went down well in the beginning but literally ran into some problems in the last mile of the race.
Distance and Time Race Profile:
- 1 km - Time: 3:48
- 2 km - Time: 8:01
- 3 km - Time 12:31
- 4 km - Time 16:44
- 5 km - Time 22:13
Basically, my leg felt fine during the run but my back went into protection mode and started to spasm at 3.5 km into the race. After the injury my back is super sensitive to stress and the muscles have a hair trigger to lock down into protection mode around the injured area i.e. tighten or engage around injured area to protect and this causes spasms in other parts of the back, mostly upper to middle back for me since I had a lower spine injury. This is exactly what happened.
I first felt this in training on a tempo run it hit at about 4 to 5 minutes. I have been able to train the on set of spasm to later in the hard runs. Before my leg injury I had it at about 12 minutes. So, to get it at about 15 minutes into the race is not bad. I was expecting it. Look at this lovely photo of me coming into the finish, I look awful, to be honest I was in a lot of pain. I actually look like someone running with back pain.
The Team Event
This race had a team event. So Shawn Hamilton, Sheryl Johnston-Beaumont and I (who all work together) registered a mixed team called the Anaerobic 1's. On the backs of stellar runs for both Shawn (18:43) and Sheryl (21:56) we won the mixed team challenge and finished 3rd overall in the team event. Here we are accepting our gold medals, I am the fat ass in the red ; -).
Overall, we had an excellent time with Dan. My race was pretty much what I expected. I need to get this leg healed.
Over an out Mikey.
