Running With Jack

Yesterday I met my friend John in the neighboring town of Durlach for his first 10K race since he was on the high school track team 20+ years ago. This race has a flat looping course around the town and offers lots of fans for support. A few of my running club were also running the race, but my priority was to make sure John made it to the finish line in good form.

John is in the U.S. Army reserves and runs on occasion and works out regularly at a fitness studio, but rarely runs more then a few miles at a time.

As we lined up in the rain at the start at 4:00 p.m. we decided to try to finish in under an hour, a goal that John felt like he could handle. We took our place near the back of the 600 racers and waited for the starting pistol.

As the race began we crept forward, taking at least 30 seconds to get over the starting line. For the first 6-7 minutes we had to keep the pace down due to the crowd of runners, but then it began to thin out. This was probably better anyway as it kept out pace down, which was good for John’s first race.

I tried to keep us at a pace that would bring us home in under an hour – for me it was almost my marathon pace, so I had lots of time to chat with John and encourage others that we passed.

We passed the 5K and halfway point in around 28 1/2 minutes, well within our 60 minute goal for the race. John was breathing a little harder, but seemed to be running a pace that he could maintain. By this time the rain stopped and the sun came out, so at least we had some nice weather to motivate us.

Around the 5 mile mark I could tell John was working hard to keep the pace going, but he had a lot of courage and kept his feet moving. As we passed the 9K point I suggested that we pick up the pace a notch, but I could tell from John’s lack of reaction that he was already red lining, so I just tried to keep us moving at the same pace.

Finally, we heard the cheering crowds, John struggled to pick up the pace some as the finish line came into view. We crossed the finish line together in 58:53, although they read my barcode first, so he was a second behind me officially.

I congratulate John on a great first race and want to add “See John, you weren’t the last one!” He came in 462nd out of 633 runners, respect!