Blue Lake 15K Race Report

On Saturday, T and I headed out to beautiful Gresham, OR to try our hands at the 35th annual Blue Lake 15K. We’d been planning the race for about a month. And T even plugged in a 4-week training program on Runners World Smart Coach. I had planned on following it as well, but I had those back problems that knocked me out for a couple of weeks. As the race approached, we both had mentioned that we weren’t feeling excited or motivated and had decided that we were just going to take it easy and see what happens during the course of the race.

My split times for the Blue Lake 15K road race

Even though we weren’t too motivated, and I wasn’t in the greatest of shape, the website for the race made it seem like it was going to be a great run. Flat, fast, and beautiful were some of the words T used when she described the race to me. T and I were pretty excited to best our previous 15K time from the Shamrock Run back in March.

The course was definitely flat, but I wouldn’t call it fast or beautiful. If you don’t know Gresham, it can get pretty windy out there in the Columbia gorge and Saturday was no exception. Even though the course was basically and out and back, with the first part running in to the wind, I swear more than 50% of the race was run into a head wind. It wasn’t fun at all–in fact it was down right miserable. And I wouldn’t classify running on Marine Dr. out by the Troutdale Airport next to a chain link fence for the majority of the race too beautiful of a course.

At the start of the race, I actually felt pretty good, and rattled off my first mile in just about 8 minutes. But by the time we reached mile 2, we were out of the park and into the wind and I could tell that this wasn’t going to be a very fun day. Somewhere during the second mile, T dropped back behind me a bit and I tucked into a pack of about 5 runners, trying to shield myself from the wind.  But I still had to work harder than I wanted.  Even with the wind, I was able to get through them in about 8:30 pace.

The 6th mile was my best mile of the race.  We turned around and headed back towards the start and I actually felt decent.  Also, the wind subsided quite a bit and I was able to get into a little bit of a rhythm.  I worked hard and was able to run my second fasted mile of the race without feeling terrible.

But it was all downhill from there.  At least for me it was.  At the next aid station, I ate an energy gel and drank some water, but I immediately knew I was in trouble.  My stomach was balking at that gel and the water, which usually helps the stuff go down, didn’t seem to be doing it’s job.  For a while, I really thought I was going to puke my guts out–I even had a few uh-oh burps that reminded me that the gel was berry flavored.

The race continued, and as the wind got faster again, I could feel myself slowing down.  I just wanted to be done.  My stomach felt terrible for the rest of the race–so terrible that I didn’t even take a drink at the final aid station for fear of throwing up.  T caught up to be with about a half mile left and we finished together (actually, she was 1 second ahead of me).  We ran hard to the finish line and I immediately told her that I thought I was going to throw up.  I could have easily made myself, but decided against it and felt better as I walked around a bit.

I finished the race in 1:19:07–3:35 faster than my Shamrock Run Time.  I haven’t ever worked that hard in a race before.  I can’t remember needing to throw up during exercise since high school baseball conditioning week.  Both T and I thought it was really funny that before the race, we were talking about how I never work hard enough to make myself throw up when running races.  I’ll never say never again, I guess.  I can’t say that I liked the feeling.  And it made me wonder a bit.  Is the discomfort of puking really worth 54th place?  I can see pushing that hard for 1st or 2nd place–maybe even for an age group prize–but for 54th?  I think I’ll take it a bit easier next time.