chasing Cupid

This will be my first ever blog post ever, so ill try to do what I can to keep it interesting. Before I write about my first event, I'll write a little about myself. I'm Shawn, I am a cat. 4 racer and coming off my last year as a junior with the team Citius and winning the ABRA criterium Series. This year I am glad to be riding forDynamic Physical Therapy Cycling p/b Pathfinder and hope to have another successful year and do what I can to help the team be as successful as the past years. Outside of cycling I am a assistant scoutmaster with the troop I had earned my eagle with last year. I am also a fan of photography as I had documented some of the falls ABRA Cyclocross races. As some of you that know me I love to also cook and bake, and will probably end up putting a paragraph in once a month containing what I had made.

Well my first event of the year was The Cupid's Chase 5k in South Park. This event was rather expensive at $35 for pre-reg that goes to Community Options, Inc (COI) COI is a national nonprofit organization that develops housing and employment support for people with developmental disabilities. The price aside it was motivation to get me to get off the off-season rest and start working out in February instead of starting in March. All in all I took only 3 weeks to go from couch to 5k and only a total of 4 runs, which was not the way to get ready at all.

I had did this race last year it was snowy and a fun run but was in North Park last year and was a pretty flat course, with a PR of around 25 minutes. Yet this year it was similar conditions snowy and cold but since in South Park it was a different course which started with about a mile climb with about equal decent then the last mile or so was flat. Since it had snowed about 3” over night it was the perfect opportunity try out the new trail shoes, which have aggressive treads and a water proof gators. After using them on a muddy trail I was pretty confident in the traction they have and I was right, during the run I occasionally ran off the road and in the snow, surprisingly I had just about the same amount of traction as I did on the road. Those that have run in snow with road shoes will have an idea of how difficult it can be to get traction.

Now for the race, after a couple slips on the snowy/icy road I got there an hour early as I'm used to for most cycling event. For the entry I expected a good bit at registration, and there was had chip timing, plus all the extras you got for doing the race, a long sleeve shirt (red if you were available or white if you were not, I didn't realize this till after I was all pinned and ready to race), a bag of goodie, plus almost all the bananas and bagels you could eat. After awhile I had met up with a friend from cycling last year, Rick Plowman. After the the snow plow had gone up and down the road a couple times, we had all lined up. My goals for this events were to A). to not let Rick beat me and B). finish under 30 minutes.

We start pretty much on time and at this point I was fallowing Rick through the crowd of people it thinned out after a couple minutes and I was able to settle in to a rhythm, only about 8 minutes into the race I could already feel my shins start to sting from the impact and being under trained. After we toped the hill and started downhill I looked back expecting to have lost Rick already but he was sticking with me. On the downhill I decided to take the snow because t

he seemed as it may have been slick and didn't want to take the chance and the treads on the shoes felt great. Every once awhile during the race I would run in the snow to help reduce the impact on my shins and hold off on letting it slow me down much. Reaching the bottom of the hill I had heard Rick say his shoe was untied, so as he tied his shoes I shortened my gate and let him catch back up before the final mile which was on the walking path that didn't have the convenience to be plowed so it had a layer of snow on it. Being a walking path there was much room to pass but plenty of opportunity to, we run pass the finishing straight to a turn around about a few hundred yards down then your running back down some of the walking path leaving even less room to pass and this is the point I like to open my gate and pass who I can before the line. After the turn around was the last I had saw Rick as I was concentrating on when and how I was going to pass the people ahead, the final straight was a little bit slippy so I couldn't put the final kick in that I had wanted to but still managed to pass 3 or 4 people on the walk way and managed to put about 20 seconds into Rick in the last quarter mile. I crossed the line at 28:30 about 3:30 off my PR as it happened Rick crossed the line at 28:50 about 3:30 faster than his PR. After all was said or and done most gathered for the drawing for the door prizes and awards. Both me and Rick won a door prize of both a package of detour bars and a dozen heart shaped Smiley Cookies. As the awards were being presented we were joking about the winners time, as my age group came up I was surprised that I had gotten first in my age group since I was bout 10 minutes slower than the kids in my age group are usually finishing, this is a case where it pays to just show up. This is probably the first and last time ill place 1^st in this age group.

I will put here next time of what I had baked but I haven't bake recently, so ill have to leave this empty for now. Thanks for reading, be sure to check back at the end of march for a recap on the training series.