Track and Field Blogs - Nate Jenkins

Cell phone alarm goes off 4:45AM. Very tired. Back is a little off from the springs in the hotel fold out couch. My roommate, top masters runner and all around nice guy Paul Aufdemberge heads out for a quick shakeout, I have decided to forgo the normal AM wake up 15 minute jog in favor of an hour later wake up call, anytime the alarm goes at 3:45 I find myself unhappy, and a little breakfast a power bar and two pop tarts from the gas station up the road from the hotel. I do AIS stretching while Paul jogs and watch sportscenter on super low volume, don’t want to wake the folks in the room next to us. Paul returns from his jog to inform me it is “very humid but breezy out”. Coming to Atlanta from the coolest New England August in recent memory the breeze is not much consolation. I ask if it’s a tail wind? Paul says no and I’m disappointed the course tour was intimidating it is the scariest looking course I have ever scene 10k straight as an arrow up and down big looming hills, not a flat stride length on it. At one time they called it the worlds toughest 10k. Now in interest of drawing in more runners they have switched it to the US 10k Classic.

At 6:45 Paul and I start our warm up out the front door of the hotel, the start being only a hundred yards or so from its front door. We exchange hello’s with Glenn Latimer across the street from hotel at our baggage van, Paul drops off his stuff, I’ve left mine in the room looking do my last stretch in the AC of the hotel I only hope I don’t get caught there because of busy elevators. We find a mostly flat stretch along a mall access road and do loops there, most of the other Pro’s are doing the same and a few other runners as well. It’s still dark. Back on the main road the Bike race has gone off and there are thousands of runners making there way to there place behind the line.

The start is a steep downhill and with about 10,000 people lined up behind us it is a bit of a scary feeling but I enjoy the start even though it seemed to take them a million years to get it going after Jordan Sparks finished the national anthem. I’m a good downhill runner and I’m sharing the lead by the bottom of the hill. It’s a real strong field, 15 or 20 east Africans, including a few real guns like 12:56 man Luke Kipkosgei, and 8 or 9 solid Japanese runners, including a 2:08:12 marathoner.

Still after we finish the first climb and start down to the mile mark it seems everyone is more intimidated by the course then me, or perhaps the early start has them feeling sluggish. Whatever it is I drift into the lead with no real effort and slip past the mile in 4:47. I’m very pleased I was guessing it was 5:00 by the effort. By the bottom of the hill I can tell I have a bit of a gap and I’m wondering what all the guys on the flotilla of vehicles in front of us, it even includes a 18 wheeler painted in green with the races mains sponsor, Publix sign all down the sides, are thinking. Do they think I’m a crazy local guy trying to steal a little glory? Or perhaps just a poor racing tactician. I don’t worry about it for long very soon the next climb has begun and it is a long one. I expect to be caught right away but instead I seem to pull away at first, for a couple of minutes I have delusions of stealing this thing. It usually only takes 30 flat to win and I’m on pace for that, perhaps they think I’m a piker and they’ll let me get away for a bit and try to charge hard at the end. I decide if I’m still alone at the top of the hill I’ll attack though it is really too early.

As we reach the top and the two mile mark, 9:48 a tough 5:01, my thoughts of breakaway end as the pack catches me. On the next down I again move to the front of the pack but as we climb past the three mile mark, a 4:47. That was another tough mile and I’m real happy with the split even though I find myself off the back of the pack a bit with a couple of the Japanese. It’s been a bad year and I haven’t run a good race in a while and I’m real excited to be hitting solid splits on these hills. I rejoin the pack on the next down hill but as we climb again I get dropped for good with one of the Japanese about 400m before the 4 mile mark I’m happy to note a 19:22 at that split. I note in the back of my head that it is about the time I ran for the last race Glenn brought me in for and that course was flat and I think it was cooler out. At minimum the day has been better then that. I immediately refocus remembering my course tour I have made the 5^th mile the focal point. I remember thinking as we drove up it, its all up, that it would take a miracle to break 5:20 up this thing. I wish I had thought 5:10. I work hard but it proves a self fulfilling prophesy and I run 5:20 on the nose. I get dropped a little but one Japanese and two Africans are off the back of the pack and my Japanese has joined them. I’m really fighting now have been for a while and try as I might to get them back before the last down hill, I know if I’m with them at the top I will beat them, I just can’t seem to close an inch. All this piss poor racing has left me a little weak on the toughness side it seems. On the downhill to the finish I catch the group of four but only beat one. I see 30:30 as I cross the line and assume my time is a few seconds slower, it always is.

I’m thrilled. The course was very challenging and this is the best race I’ve run in a long while. I grab some food from the tables after the normal recovery and dry heaves and shaking hands with competitors. I set my booty aside for after the cool down. I stretch a bit and try to chat with the Japanese. After a bottle of water and 10 or 15 minutes I start cooling down with Paul and Scott Woods, the other American guy of note in the field, we add women’s Master winner Jody Hawkins to the group and after a couple of minutes me and Jody pull away, both of us were happier with our races so I think it gave us a little extra bounce. We talk about her upcoming marathon debut, her two growing boys and my habit of beating on my little brother growing up. We search for trails or anything better then the parking lot we are doing loops in but to no avail. It’s a good conversation and we are done before long.

After the awards and before the Jordan sparks concert, I’m not disappointed, we over stuff a van with sweaty bodies from four countries and drive backwards down the still closed race course to the hotel relying on the small race magnets on the rental van and Glenn’s unshakeable I belong here attitude to get us past the cops. It works and we are at the hotel by 10:30.

After a quick shower and a quicker job packing, Paul and I are off to lunch. We invite our neighbor across the hall Bill Rodgers but he decides on a nap instead. We soldier on and have a lovely sit down meal at Wendy’s. I can’t help but enjoy it a little less as I worry about what Katie Qwyther, my nutritionist, is going to say when she sees two jr. bacon cheese burgers and a frosty on my weekly report.

At noon its back in the vans, me and bill have hopped on this van even though our flight to Boston isn’t scheduled to leave till 7. We have a plan. Bill has called the airline and they have assured him there are seats on early flights. We have to wait to switch so the fee will only be 50 bucks. Well worth getting home at 5PM instead of 11 and spending a day sitting in a hotel lobby.

At the airport are plot seems foiled the kiosks won’t let us switch flights and an airline lady tells us they have filled up. Me and bill are very disappointed and push for other options. She says things can change fast and that we might be able to get on at the gate and to check in with our current tickets and try to get on earlier flights once we are past security.

We go with this plan and after getting through the most massive security area in all the land. Really you need to go through the Atlanta airport security at least once in your life it is really quite and experience. Me and Bill set our sites on the 3PM flight. But when we get to the gate they are boarding another flight to else where so we decide to take on last ditch shot at the 1:50 flight they told us is full, basically because it is only a few gates away.

We walk straight up to the girl at the counter, no line, she says she has plenty of seats and would be like to sit together. Perfect!! We cough up our cards, get our new tickets. We get snacks and are boarded inside of 10 minutes later.

Both of us are pretty excited to make the flight and discuss our little adventure long enough to get to the drinks but shortly after we toast to our victorious escape from Atlanta we both tire. We settle into reading, me a book on Teddy Roosevelt and Bill the latest Running times, I’d kill for a trade on this it looks like a great issue with a huge section on High school cross country. I make a note to pick up a copy, oh and I’d better get the latest New England runner while I’m at it. We read and dose off and chat a bit over the rest of the flight. We land in Boston at 10 minutes after 4 roughly the time we were scheduled to leave our hotel, again we discuss our good fortune. At Dunkin’s in the airport we part ways, Bill needs a coffee.

I have a short wait for a bus to my car in Woburn. I kill the time txting, its my guiltiest habit.

It’s labor day so there is no traffic and I’m to my car and home with little fuss. By 6:20. I’m changed and out the door for an easy 10 miler. Man I can help but enjoy how much cooler it is here. Funny when I went to Atlanta on the fourth of July it was the same temp down there and a little less humid, but now its perfect up there and soupy down there. The summer doesn’t die in the south, Jody’s, who is from Texas, insistence that it was beautifully cool and nice in Atlanta this morning not withstanding.

Its 9 now and I’m doing this blog and my training blog for last week while eating some chili I pulled out of the freezer for a late dinner. It has been a long day and I’m ready for bed but I have a few emails to answer for the club I coach before I can get some sweet sleep.