St. Patrick's Day Parade Run - 5-mile
St. Louis, Missouri
Saturday, March 16th, 2024
The St. Patrick's Day Parade Run is a 5-mile race that has been around for 46 years, held in the heart of St. Louis. This race has an incredible history and is well-known for some epic battles between local and national caliber athletes over the years.
This race isn't "easy" though! The streets of St. Louis are all but flat, providing an engaging racing experience, as you must bring together superior fitness and racing strategy.
Adding all of these points together, It was easy to decide to do this race, and I was excited to put in a good effort to gauge where my fitness was in the early part of training.
Here's how my day unfolded.
Pre-Race Schedule
6:20 am - Up and at it
6:30 am - Coffee + 1 pack of belivita
7:00 am - Left the house.
7:30 am - Arrived at a parking garage I reserved a spot in the night before.
7:45 - 8:00 am - Walked around to check out where the start and finish line was
8:15 - 8:35 am - Warm-up miles + drills
8:45 - 8:50 am - Pre-race strides ( 2 x 1:00 min)
9:00 am - Race Begins
Pre-Race Notes:
I felt rough during my warm-up. I was more tired, heavy, and sore than I expected. The day before I tested a new pre-race routine by doing 2 x 200m followed by 1 x 400. For the 200m reps, I hit 32 and 33 seconds and for the 400 I hit 1:06. I may have hit these with too much effort and this could be a possibility as to why I felt "off". I can't tell you the last time I ran a 1:06 400m, so perhaps too much of a shock to the system. Good to know, though! Now is the time to try different pre-race routines if there ever was one.
Once I shed some layers, changed into my shoes (Asics Metaspeed Sky Paris), and did my pre-race reps, I felt better. I still had some deep fatigue in the quads, but this isn't uncommon. Sometimes my body lies and shuts down before doing something that requires a lot of effort.
As I got to the start line I recognized a few runners. Good runners. Seeing this, I knew it wouldn't be an easy win for anyone involved as we are all fairly close in ability but at different levels of our current training. It could be anyone's race, I thought.
The Race Begins...
1st mile - There was a pack of 6-8 of us. There was some weird surging but everyone held it together and eventually, we settled. Early on, I didn’t do much work from the front of the group, I just tried to keep my cool and stay relaxed.
We clocked 4:58.
2nd mile - Nothing too substantial to note here. The group held it together over one of the longer hills and I felt fine from head to toe. At this point, it was still anyone's race but for some, you could tell which runners were feeling better than others based on their breathing and the fluidity of their stride. I knew it wouldn't be long before the group split up.
9:58 through 2 miles.
3rd mile - You could tell people were beginning to get antsy by the surging leading up the 3rd mile. There were several occasions where there were 10-20 second surges from several of us in the group, likely to try and break up the pack we had going.
By mile 3 my confidence level wasn’t great but I wasn’t out of it. I didn't know how much more I would have to give over the last 2 miles, but that's the fun part about racing and pushing yourself to your limit - you get to find out.
5k in 15:38
The "Move"
Somewhere between 3-4 miles, there was a big surge that changed the entire dynamic of the race. Our pack was broken up in a matter of seconds, stringing us into a line. This move was made just before hitting a long stretch of downhill. Knowing the course and when to make this type of move has an advantage. I'm a foreigner to the downtown streets of St. Louis so I had no clue that we were about to hit a long downhill stretch. I couldn't match the move the leader made up the hill, and by the time we hit that downhill stretch, it was too late.
From miles 3 to 4 we ran somewhere in the ballpark of a 4:40 mile. The downhill helped, but this is when the race really started.
The Finishing Bits
By the time there were 1200 meters to go first place was guaranteed. He had enough of a lead that would have taken a huge kick from those chasing him or he would have to blow up massively. Neither of those things happened and he crossed the line assertively.
2nd and 3rd place was up for grabs, and the two seemed to be gearing off each other, likely waiting until the other made their final move. I was chasing in 4th.
During that time I thought I had a shot at catching 2nd and 3rd, but I also knew that would require a huge effort. Could I find something deeper? I dug around in hopes of finding something, but it turns out I didn't have the edge to go to the dark place.
As much as I wanted to come from behind and possibly snag 2nd and 3rd, it wasn't happening.
I didn't have the gear and the mind to make that gap up with such little time remaining, and the two in front of me certainly weren't slowing down.
Those two battled it out to the line and I finished in 4th in 24:48.
I'm content with that. Maybe not my best possible performance and my finishing minutes were a bit lackluster, but I don't think I could've done much more on the day.
Takeaways
Training is going well and I’m doing the right things and nothing needs to change
Racing is a good teacher and motivator
Know the course
Tweak the pre-race routine
Take the risk and try to go deeper
Local races are a great chance to meet other runners and find future training partners
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