Pear Blossom: iPod blunders, untied shoes, and Hal Look-alikes

  Before I knew it, April had rolled around and that meant it was time for the Pear Blossom Run,  I actually felt nervous for this race.  I have run it twice before, but both times I had much greater endurance because I had been racing at longer distances.  This time, 10 miles was a long way for me to run and I wasn't sure how I would handle it.  I thought about doing the 5K, but after helping out with a couple of training groups that were running the 10 miler, I felt obligated to do the longer race.
  I woke up extra early on race morning so I could head into Medford with my family.  My son was going to run the 5K and I wanted to be there to cheer him on.  Unfortunately, my son who is 12, has decided that he is close enough to being a teenager that he can start acting like one.  At the last minute he came up with some excuses and decided not to run it.  Anyways, since we had all made the effort to get up early and drive to Medford, we really wanted him to run but he just wasn't in to it.  And just like that, with everyone slightly irritated, my family headed home and I was left standing there in the cold with an hour and twenty minutes to spare.  It didn't take long for me to run into a few friends. Fortunately, time passed rather quickly and it was time to line up.

I decided to line up a little ways back from the front.  I didn't want to intimidate Max or anything!

  The gun went off and I settled into a somewhat comfortable pace.  My main objective was to not go out too fast so I would still have something left in the last couple of miles.  In fact, I was hoping to be able to pick it up a little bit in the second half of the race.  Earlier in the week, I had washed my i-Pod shuffle and fried it so I had to borrow my wife's nano.  Unfortunately, I never really figured it out before the race and didn't have it set up properly.  I listened to one song during the start of the race and then it went silent.  I couldn't easily operate the touch screen with gloves on and decided it was too much of a distraction to deal with at that moment.  I had my headphones on but all I could hear was the sound of my breathing.  I ended up settling in next to another runner who was running the same pace at about the 3 mile mark and we stuck together for the next 4 miles.  The race was pretty uneventful for those early miles.  I really enjoyed seeing some of the runners from the training groups as I headed back from the turn around.

If Bolt could set a world record with his shoes untied, I figured I could make it 4 miles!

  I was at about mile 6 when a minor tragedy struck.  My shoelace came untied.  I had felt my shoe loosening up in the middle of the race but I was hoping it would hold together.  I knew if I stopped, I would lose my rhythm and pace.  I was starting to fatigue and figured that I better just keep moving.  After I finished, another runner that was near me for the majority of the race, said that's the longest he had seen someone race with an untied shoe.  I told him that I didn't want to take the time to stop.  Now he brings up a good question.  Is that the longest someone has run in the Pear Blossom with an untied shoe?  My answer is probably not, but that may be worth checking into.  Apparently, this guy thought it was pretty impressive.  They may want to add it to that pamphlet we get each year with our packet, the one with all the historical data.  It's probably the only way I could get my name into that thing since I don't run sub six or five minute mile pace.

On a positive note, I did run faster than the Avengers!

    Around mile 7, a group of motorcycle cops were headed down the road, followed by two cops on bikes.  One of the bike cops looked over at me and said, "Hi Hal".  I was trying to conserve every last bit of breath I had by then so I just responded by saying "Hi".  I think he was also concerned about my untied shoe, but can you really blame him?  I didn't want to take the time to explain that I wasn't him.  If I was him, I would be up near the front of the pack because Hal always puts in a solid run at the Pear.  This year, Hal and a group of runners from Southern Oregon were down at Lake Sonoma running a 50 miler. For those of you who don't know, I often am confused with Hal Koerner of Rogue Valley Runners.  I often have people say "Hi Hal" to me when I am running around town or they will come up to me in the gym and tell me how much they enjoy the shoes they bought from my store.  I even have joked with him about making appearances on his behalf when he can't be around or is out of town.  If for some reason Hal is actually reading this, I would promise to charge a reasonable fee for appearances.  I think it could work as long as I wasn't asked to run during the appearance.  If I did have to run, I could always say that my legs weren't recovered or something from my last 100 miler.  Just a thought.

Tyrone Raber helping me pick up the pace to the finish!

    Just after the 9 mile marker, I saw my friend Tyrone Raber.  He had raced in the 5K and he stuck around to watch some of the 10 mile race.  He started running with me in that last mile.  It helped me pick up the pace and it also took my mind off how tired I was.  That last mile flew by.  I was able to pick it up all the way to the finish line and ended up with a time of 1:14:02.  My goal was to run under 1:20 which was under 8 minute mile pace and I easily did that with a 7:24/mile pace.  I was happy with the run and I did much better than I thought I could do.  Next up, an 18 mile jog on the trail around Lost Creek Lake.