The 2015 Monster Dash 5k -- Saturday, October 24th at 7:00pm The Lil' Monsters Fun Run (kids' run) starts at 6:30pm. The Costume Contest starts at 6:45pm. The event's official site can be found HERE. The Monster Dash 5k is popular with KC Running Company frequent fliers, not only for the costumes and Halloween theme, but the route is pretty cool, too! The basics remain the same: a start and finish at River Market in Downtown KC and a descent in to and out of Riverfront Park (which, actually, can get a bit spooky with how dark it gets -- oooooooooooohhhhh!!). This one is a night run, and starts just after dark -- so keep that in mind when running the route. Packet Pick-Up Location This year's packet pick-up is at BOTH KC Running Company's retail stores in Leawood, Kansas (4760 W. 135th Street -- across from Prairie Fire) and in Lee's Summit, Missouri (1555 NE Douglas Street - near St. Luke's East). Packet pick-up takes place between 2:00pm noon and 6pm on Friday, October 23rd. The pick-up becomes especially busy at the start and end of packet pick-up, and that is doubly-so considering each the start and end of pick-up is during the lunch-hour and rush-hours, respectively. Additionally, during normal 9-to-5 business hours, the surrounding business in the business parks are open, leaving parking few and far between. Something to keep in mind. YOU CAN ALSO PICK UP YOUR PACKETS ON RACE DAY, near the start/finish line, from 5:30-6:45pm. The Leawood KC Running Company Store is mapped here... ...and the Lee's Summit location is mapped here... Event Parking The race starts and finishes at the intersection of Grand Boulevard and 3rd Street in the River Market district of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. In the past, with an early-enough arrival, I have been able to park right on Grand just south of 3rd Street, only a hundred feet or so from the start line (however, that was when the start line was on 3rd street rather than Grand). Here's a mapping of where there's a few small lots available. If that doesn't work out for you, there should be plenty of parking just south of City Market along both 5th and 6th Streets. KC Running Company put this recommendation in their Athlete Guide in 2014 -- should still hold true this year as well... Additional Race Day Information
Course Preview Link to this route in Google Maps can be found HERE. If you'd like to see one of my old "Virtual Run" features on this route, check it out here. But, honestly, it's so dark most parts of the course, it doesn't really come in handy. It's well-staffed, though -- you'll have no problem navigating. The same route for 2015 as last year. Here are the basics for the route...
Only one climb adorns the route: the climb out of Riverfront Park, sitting at about a quarter mile from the finish, and ascends about 42 feet or so at an average of 5%. Here's what that one looks like...
NO GO FORTH AND CONQUER (whilst adorning batman suits). I'll be Robin -- see you at the start line. Until then, keep R/B/S'ing. -tds ~~__o _-/<,_ @/ @
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2015 Paulina Cooper Dot-to-Dot 10k Saturday, August 29th, 2015 @ 7:30am Corporate Woods Business Park Overland Park, Kansas The first of 3 events in the Heartland 30k series starts with the Paulina Cooper Dot-to-Dot 10k. For runners familiar with events inside Corporate Woods' Business Park (Girls on the Run 5k, the former Jazz in the Woods 5k, this year's CASA Superhero 5k), this course will feel quite familiar. A few hills here and there, it does provide quite the challenge physically, and for 10k participants, it'll provide a psychological challenge with the knowledge you have to run everything twice (the 10k course is two laps of the 5k route). ONWARD! Registration
No Charge for Dot-to-Dot Trot Now until July 26
Friday, August 28 from 12:00 to 6pm
Packet Pick-Up Friday, August 28th, 12:00pm to 6:00pm KC Running Company 4760 W. 135th Street Leawood, Kansas 66224 (packet pick-up is also available on race-day from 6:00-7:00am) Packet pick-up has moved to the KC Running Company standalone store in Leawood, Kansas. If you're going during business hours (and especially at the start, when the lunch rush begins), expect to park further away and walk a bit. Race-Day Parking Race-day parking usually doesn't present too much of an issue for participants -- unless you like to cut it reeeeeal close to start time. The entrances to the business park are tough to get to close to race time, as they are usually blocked off by police (about 15 minutes before the start). Beyond that, parking is pretty simple. The start is in front of building 3 (see map below), so most people like to find parking on the south side of that building. Additional Race Day Information
Course Preview Official 5k Course Map can be found HERE. The route taken for the Dot-to-Dot 10k is a double-lap iteration of a route popular with several 5- and 10k's throughout the year. Girls on the Run 5k uses the single-lap course, as does the former Jazz in the Woods 5k, and this year's CASA Superhero 5k. For the Paulina Cooper Dot-to-Dot, both a 5k and 10k are offered. The 5k route is covered in this course preview, as the 10k is just two laps. Doing the 10k (like me)? Just double everything. Here are the basics for the 2015 10k route...
Of the three 10k's in the Heartland 30k series, this sits comfortably in the middle for total elevation gain. There is an average of about 65 feet of elevation gain per mile, so obviously nowhere near something like Broadway Bridge (I think about 120ft gain per mile).
Two main climbs adorn the route, (each climbed twice if you're doing the 10k). The Farley Street hill (climbs #1/3) always feels the most tortuous to runners given the length of the climb, though the Benson Drive Turnaround actually poses more overall elevation gain and a steeper grade. Here's a run-down of the two main climbs on-route...
The remainder of the course is relatively flat, though after the first lap, those climbs do start to wear on the legs. Competitive runners will quickly grab a good placing out of the gate, just in time for the first climb up the Benson Drive Turnaround on the Southeast corner of the route. Usually by the turnaround, the top 15 spots are set. Then runners should sit in and hold off attacks until the last climb up Farley Street Hill, where any attacks will crush the souls who can't match. That's all I got for now! It's good to be back doing previews. Heartland Heat Triathlon coming soon!! Keep R/B/S-ing. -tds ~~__o _-/<,_ @/ @ Local runners may be familiar with this one; perhaps one of the more popular themed races is the Mustache Dash 5k. This year there are five offerings throughout the midwest, including Omaha, St. Louis, Wichita, Tulsa (OK), and Leawood (KS). This one will, of course, be covering the KC-area version, Leawood. Pre Race Course Preview Link to this route in Google Maps can be found HERE. For my in-depth course preview write-up, visit the course preview post HERE. Battling both kinds of cold. My time spent at the packet pick-up (this year located at KC Running Company's new retail store -- which is awesome, by the way) was short-lived and sans-pictures. This year, three days out, I came under the spell of a nasty sinus infection. By Friday, my race plans were tentative, as any prolonged time spent vertical left my sinuses throbbing and my head spinning. Certainly running in this condition was next to physically impossible. The final days of the week presented with dreary and cold conditions as well -- which wasn't helping. Jump to Friday morning, 6:30am, and I woke up surprisingly clear. No, I wasn't anywhere near 100%, but I could stand. Therefore, I would run. The only concern at this point: barely-40-degree morning weather might put me back under the...well...weather. And only one week until KC Marathon race day? Yikes. I jacket-ed up, and nearly succumbed to tights as well (I didn't). Arriving on-site, I could tell the initial adrenaline of waking on race morning was wearing off. Out in the cold, my sinuses (and lungs) were started to argue with me once more. My head swimming, I barely got in a warm-up run, misplacing the correct start time by about 30 minutes. I got in as many strides as I could before it was time to line up. This wasn't going to be pretty... Race Day The start line was still cold, even after a warm-up. Some of that could still have been the infection running through my veins, though. Five minutes from start, I had no idea what to expect out of my legs, and my body. I'd been on nearly four complete days of rest, sick during all, and not a solid mile run in nearly a week (I had planned for a long run the day I came down with the illness). The pre-race time expired, and all were off. Within the first 300m, a natural group of five formed. I didn't quite have the speed, so I held off from attempting to stick. By 500m, the group shed two more runners, with myself remaining in sixth (P6). Seventh and eighth were gaining a touch, but I was able to hold well through the first mile marker. As my watched beeped one mile, I could feel my lungs start to sting from the cold, and the cold (redundancy intended). I ignored my watch -- I didn't want to see how poorly I was running, although I was happy with retaining a top-10 spot. Surely I couldn't keep it for long, with my lungs starting to argue with me (but, surprisingly, my legs holding firm). Beyond mile marker 1, the road began to pick up. Ascents adorned the first mile, too, but nothing that registered with my legs. Ascending toward College Boulevard, my legs still held, by my lungs turned from sting to sear. But still, I pushed, following the turnover of my legs as much as possible. Turning off of College and to Roe, there was another uptick towards the 2-mile marker. I could hear the steps of P7 and P8 edging up behind me. Oh the uptick, I was able to hold, followed by a long descent. Here, both 7th and 8th passed, pushing me in to P8. My legs were finally fatiguing, and the quad-pounding of the down-slopes proved painful. Then, the only significant climb on-route hit on approach back towards Town Center. With the brief break for my breathing, I was able to give a slight surge. Turning on to 117th towards Town Center, I looked back towards the corner -- 9th was a ways back, but if I let up too much I could risk my 8th place finish. Up ahead, I was able to match pace with P6 and P7, but not gain any ground. P5 was losing ground to 6th and 7th, but not enough that I could overtake. Approaching mile 3, the name of the game would be maintenance. In through the Park Place parking garage, I did a double-check behind me. I had a good 15-second lead over 9th. Final corner and on to the final stretch, I let up a touch. Then, looking towards the finish line, I saw what I had yet to see ever: 19:50. A sub-20 time!???? For me, over the last year, that was the holy grail. With nearly a tenth of a mile to go, there's no way I could cover 10 seconds or less. But suddenly the sub-20 seemed within reach. Ignoring my watch the whole race, I had no idea how close I was. I started to ask: did ignoring my watch help my time? Or would seeing my watch and how close to sub-20 I was given me the extra push to actually grab sub-20? Hard to tell, but one thing was fore sure...I had to surge now -- a PR was no on the line. I kicked -- hard -- and crossed at 20:16. Sub-6:30 for the first time ever. The long-awaited PR. I had been aiming for this for seven months now. I had ticked sub-6:30 finally. Now the only next stop was sub-20. Then, who knows. Sub-6:00?? The coveted 5:30??? A door I had been knocking at all year finally chose to creak open. All whilst batting the cold and a cold. Who would've thought?? Race Metrics
Keep R/B/S-ing. -tds ~~__o _-/<,_ @/ @ This will be more like a race brief, but a necessary one, for those considering this event in the future. But first, let me start out by saying that, yes, I despise mud runs (and obstacle runs, and themed runs -- as they are most often developed by for-profit companies rather than not-for-profit charities -- but besides that I just don't like them). And yes, this wasn't technically supposed to be a mud run. And of course, the event was well-organized in all other aspects other than the course, the coordinators were awesome, and the volunteers were uber-nice. And, without a doubt, I do not regret going to this event, and would even (maybe) attend again in the future. Okay...now that I got those caveats out in the clear -- this run was quite miserable. Let's start, first with an early preview of the rough estimate of the race route. Make no mistake: a preview is helpful 99.9% of the time. For this event, it was not. At all. The route seemingly ran along trails made way by even organizers, utilizing the unused quartiles of a pumpkin farm, as well as the outer perimeters of said farmland, and of course their corn maze. Not a bad use of farmland, I must say. This was going to be awesome. The only if was the corn maze, which didn't have a specific route layout ahead of time, and was just characterized by a basic run across where the maze would be -- no switchbacks or anything. Next, let's check out the race-week email and athlete guide, warning of the potential of rain, and noting that the coursecan get muddy if it rains within a couple of days of the race. Noted. No problemo. I'm wearing my trail runners anyways. Finally, let's check out the weekend that came two days out -- it speaks for itself. Dually noted. This may get messy. I'll bring a towel and a change of clothes (which I normally do anyways). In the 24 hours prior to race day, I checked out grassy areas all around, assessing for the possible damage that I might encounter. The grounds, parched as they usually are after a long summer, were draining well. Sure, there were some puddles here and there, and some mud in the occasional ditch. Hell, I even ran off-road the morning of, being sure to check out even the deepest of ditches for what was to come. Nothing could have prepared. Nothing, I say. The first quarter mile started as expected, over the same terrain I'd warmed up on no more than 30 minutes before the start line. From time to time, namely in potholes and in shaded areas (like around the bases of trees), I kicked up a bit of mud, but nothing to really stress over -- after all it did rain in the days previous, and I came prepared and expected a bit of messy. Then came the Southern edge of the farm, completely shaded by overhanging trees, still desperately clinging on to their orange-, yellow-, and red-shaded foliage. Along the edges of the farmlands' plots the ground sat, devoid of all plant life, lower than the farmland itself. The combination of all of this meant three things: significant runoff, no plant roots, and zero chance of evaporation. The result was mud, fresh and several inches deep, some areas with near an inch of still-standing and stagnant water from the rain showers that had ceased well over a day ago. When it comes to running on mud, you can step only so lightly. You can use your shoes' toes only so much. One misstep and splat. Not a hundred feet in to this muddied section of "trail" and my left shoe disappeared, without warning of a loosening shoestring or otherwise. I hopped on one foot back to the hole in the mud where, presumably, it'd vanished. Luckily, the trim on my trail runners are bright orange, and "luckily," they feature a loop at the heel. I grabbed at the loop and tugged, and it slipped. I hopped back, tugged again with my body weight in aide, and the loop snapped. I fell, full-weighted in to the ground. So much for hopping on one foot. I got up, stepped with exposed feet back to my shoe -- water and mud and muddy water saturating my left sock and pouring in to my right shoe -- and shoveled the ground up around my shoe with both hands. Shoe untied, I slipped it on, my toes pressing against a bolus of mud at tip of its interior. Shoe on, tied back up, I pressed on. Mud is slippery, and though that was the extend of full-body slippage, twice over my shoes came untied in the following meters. Overall, I'd lost just over two minutes. With a false sense of mercy, the route turned North in to the barren pumpkin fields (I hadn't reached mile marker 1 yet, by the way). The early assumption was that these would be lined with homemade trails; alas, they weren't. We were running through the center of a crop field -- divots, potholes, lumps, bumps, old crops, and all. Runners were stumbling and tripping a fair bit, otherwise using all their might to stay vertical. Past one mile, we turned back south through the same field, and back in to the mud once more. Along the Eastern edge of the farms lay the same gutters, but somewhat more exposed to sunlight, which meant only mud and no more standing water. The mud was dense enough at that point to successfully run across, albeit still a dirty job. The same went for the Northern edge of the fields. Then a turn back south through, this time, currently-used pumpkin fields, with participants running in the ruts between the lines of pumpkins. Still uneven, still dirty. However, somehow, the run seemed faster at this point. My second mile clocked an 8:00/mi, despite a heart rate average well in to the 170's and 180's. I started to think about the massive numbers of muscle groups that had to be active to stay upright, and how much extra energy this run required, despite the 2-minute-per-mile slower speeds. Nearing the corn maze, I started to count off the number of runners that lay ahead of me -- a tactic I usually employ well before mile marker 1. I counted 9, putting me in 10th. 9th place ("P9") was well ahead, running about the same pace as me. I gave a few hard surges, resulting in zero extra speed. With the uneven terrain and conditions, it seemed smoothness rather than power resulted in speed. For me, that would mean settling for around 8:00/mi paces. P11 was well off in the distance behind me. Looks like 10th place is where it'd be. I entered the final stretches via the corn maze, which was a zig-zag, switchback after switchback, through about what you'd expect for a corn maze, but with the same mud as outside the maze. With the slick terra-soft'a beneath me, there was no such thing as quick switchbacks. The 3-mile alert sounded on my watch as I was exiting the maze. A short run on crushed limestone (finally some dry land!!!), followed by a run on wet and slick grass, and I crossed at just over 25 minutes, in 10th place. Not a result I was used to for a 5k (read: the course was closer to an even 3 miles by the watch). My first thought as soon as I crossed, unexpectedly, was "that was fun." What!?? That was tortuous. Insane. A legal liability, even! "What a great challenge." And that's why. A solid portion of the non-competitive runners and walkers were already lounging around the finish line, having turned around at "the mud pit" insanity in mile 1. Many were complaining, a few were laughing. With time, more of the complaints turned to smiles, laughs and reminisces of "remember that part when..." Overall, most people seemed to react similarly than I: mid-run, this run was ridiculous. Post-finish, what a blast, muddy shoes and all. What a great story to tell. What a great challenge! And with that, all participants would hang around to enjoy the awesome surroundings of the Johnson Family Farm, fresh cider in hand, well-earned finisher's medal around the neck, and proudly-picked pumpkin on display. And that's how I will remember it. Sure, those considering it in the future should heed caution, but most will end up the same: reminiscing of the frantic craziness, odd fun, and bizarre challenge that was the Great Pumpkin Run 5k. ...okay...so maybe I don't hate mud runs THAT much... Keep R/B/S-ing. -tds ~~__o _-/<,_ @/ @ P.S. - I cannot stress enough, a huge thank-you to the organizers and volunteers of this run. Even with the crazy of the course, the event was an absolute blast. I really do hope the event continues to grow in popularity. The event's official site can be found HERE. Perhaps one of the coolest events of my season comes with the Blazin' the Burg 5k, if not for the challenging course, for the gorgeous town-and-country surroundings, and amazing town's people. It is always a treat participating, despite any events I already have going that morning (it is an evening race). But first, a quick preview of the very different course... Course Preview On paper (or map, as it were), the Blazin' the Burg 5k route looks like a simple loop around the awesome town of Louisburg. For the most part, that is correct -- but it is far from simple. Here are the basics for the 2014 10k route...
The course starts from the center of town, heading West, then South out of town along Rogers Street. This is where things get sticky. Rogers Street itself has a nice little climb that is just enough to strike down anyone thinking at this point it is...well...a simple course. Then, the left-hand turn on to 287th...this is where, despite coming off of Rogers Street, the REAL Rogers Hill hits. And hits HARD. At an AVERAGE of 6.3% gradient, it is an incredibly tortuous quarter mile. Although, admittedly, I love it if nothing else for the wacky encouragement spectators give along the way (I think the one truck of spectators from last year offered me some beer from a keg).
Once conquered, a short decent and the back in to another climb towards Louisburg Lake. Things get even more interesting here, where a turn off Metcalf puts you within the Lake's park limits. From here, the course runs along the park's multi-use trails, through the pretty neighborhoods of Louisburg's Southeast side (spectators out in lawn chairs in their back yards along the way). Then, a quick cross of a street and you find yourself on UNPAVED park trail. A right turn out of park boundaries comes quickly, but not without a few hops and jumps around some big rocks and surrounding trees (unless they have since paved it -- which I doubt). Finally you come out on to the back parking lot of Louisburg High School before heading back on normal city streets and up one last climb while passing the City Park. Then, an incredibly quick jaunt to the line, technically also up-hill. Here's a run-down of the climbs on-route...
Keep R/B/S-ing. -tds ~~__o _-/<,_ @/ @ |
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