Joe Kleinerman 10K

As you may recall, I tried to break 20 minutes at a 5K on Thanksgiving in a driving rainstorm, but just missed, finishing in 20:06. Somehow I got the idea in my head that I should try to do the 10K in 40 minutes, which is somewhat illogical since your times are supposed to increase exponentially as the distance gets greater. But I always like to shoot for round and / or meaningful numbers (4 hours, qualify for Boston, sub 7:00 pace, etc.) So off I went.

The sleep situation was not good, went to bed around 4:10 a.m. Also I don't really recall eating dinner last night. On second thought there was food at the second party I attended, in somebody's home on the UES. (UES stands for "Upper East Side" for those of you in other parts of the country. That is where "The Jeffersons" moved when they got sick of living in Queens next to their racist neighbor, Archie Bunker. It is a magical place where fish don't fry in the kitchen and beans don't burn on the grill. It does, in fact, take a lot of tryin' just to get up that hill. Thankfully however, as long as we live, it's you and me baby, there ain't nothing wrong with that. And yes, there was pie at the party at well, pecan to be precise.)

At the party they had more donuts than I have ever seen at one fiesta held by people in their 20's on a Saturday night. I had a cookie, made by one of the guests, which was quite good. And I had some chips and dip. There was a bit of a design flaw in the set up however - the chips were atop the television while the dip was on the counter between the kitchen and the living room. I would grab a chip and walk 4 steps over to the dip, make some magic happen, eat the dip laden chip, and then make my way back over to the TV. I didn't really feel comfortable grabbing the dip receptacle and bring it over to the TV set, and every square inch of the counter top not occupied by the dip bowl was covered in donuts, so moving the chips was not a viable option either. So I made the best of the situation and got a little exercise as I ate, possibly burning more calories than I was consuming, which would not help me during today's race (to the extent eating potato chips and sour cream and onion dip actually helps at all to begin with).

The day before the race had started off well, with the breakfast of champions, an egg and cheese croissant from Burger King, plus 6 French Toast Sticks. Mmmmmm. During the rest of the day, before the donut party, I ate a bag of Utz brand Cheez Curls and some pretzel rods. That was it. :-(

Ok, the morning of the race arrived and I got up and drank a bottle of water and got a Gatorade from downstairs. The guy sells me small bottles of Gatorade for $1 while the rest of the world pays $1.75. He loves me, what can I say? I drank that on the short walk over to the starting area. One of the good things about living in my 'hood is that I am a short walk from the 102nd Street Transverse in Central Park where many of the races start and end.

This week I got in position at the front of the race (it took me only 9 seconds to get to the start). I decided since I came in 93rd last week that there should be roughly that many people in front of me and no more, so I felt like I belonged. Mary Wittenberg said a few words about Joe Kleinerman, the man for whom the race is named. I didn't know much about him so I googled him and found out he was quite an influential character in the running world (Mary had mentioned some of his accomplishments and innovations in her speech). I saw her assistant, my friend Alice, looking radiant as always standing next to Mary, which was nice. They then brought out a European woman who once won the NYC Marathon to blow the horn. In NYRR world the words "Get Set" and "Go" do not exist. It is "On Your Mark" and then the horn blows. And off we went.

We went counter clockwise which forces you to go up the two nastiest hills in the park, and Mile 1 takes you almost all the way to the top of the worst of them, Harlem Hill. I didn't really know what to do about that in terms of strategy. I could attack the hill and risk tuckering myself out for the rest of the race, or just take it a bit easier and save my energy for the other 5.2 miles. I decided to go with Plan A. I didn't attack it that hard - I posted about a training run I did during the summer where I essentially ran up it as fast I could go and was pretty spent at the end of it. So I knew I wasn't going to do that again (I do make some correct decisions on occasion). Anyway the result was pretty impressive. When I got to the 1 mile marker which was about 50 yards from very top of Harlem Hill a bit before the 102nd transverse the clock read 6:31. With my 9 second differential that was a pretty incredible 6:22. I felt pretty strong after that but must have lost something along the way because I actually ran slower the rest of the way (my average pace wound up being 6:24, and don't do the math now, you'll spoil the ending of the story). But I was confident anyway, because I felt like if I could do Mile 1 in 6:22 that the other comparatively easier stretches could easily be done in that time or better.

At mile 2 the clock read 12:51, for a 6:29 mile. At mile 3, the clock read 19:11 for a 6:20 mile. At mile 4 the clock read 25:33 for a 6:22 mile.

At mile 5, the clock read 32:00 for a 6:27 mile. At this point I had to put my thinking cap on to see if I could break 40, as I now realized I had 7 minutes and 59 seconds to traverse the final 1.2 miles. I didn't do the math fully but got the sense that if I did a 6ish pace I could do it. By this point I had summited Cat Hill already, and it was substantially flat and probably even net down hill the rest of the way so I was pretty confident. I actually got passed by 3 or 4 people and didn't really pass anyone myself, which was disappointing. I didn't really kick it into overdrive until I made the turn onto the transverse and got within sight of the clock and saw 39:50. At that point I went into a sprint and crossed the line 5 seconds later, beating 40 minutes by the big clock by 5 seconds, with a net time of 39:46 (a PR by quite a wide margin). My previous PR was a 42:20 which I had done twice before: once in January at the Boston Buildup race in Darien, CT and at the Healthy Kidney 10K in Central Park in May (a 6:49 pace). The CT one was far more impressive because of the absurd hills they throw at you to get you ready for the Boston Marathon (I didn't do Boston, the races were open to everyone).

So the last 1.2 mile stretch was done at a 6:28 pace. It felt like I was going at wildly divergent speeds throughout the race, but in fact the splits were very close:
Mile 1: 6:22
Mile 2: 6:29
Mile 3: 6:20
Mile 4: 6:22
Mile 5: 6:27
Last 1.2: 7:55 (6:35 minute / mile pace)

A 6:22 up Harlem Hill is much faster in effort terms than the rate I achieved on the last 1.2 so I can only conclude I did run out of gas to some extent at the end. Perhaps I will eat a dinner the night before the next race and sleep more than 3 3/4 hours. :-)

My relative rank was a bit disappointing, I finished 227th this week after finishing 93rd last week. I attribute this to the 10K being a more popular distance among serious runners than last week's 4 miler turned 5 miler. Obviously since my pace was comparable for a greater distance (6:24 vs. 6:19) I should have actually had a higher percentage finish all other things being equal. So I think my explanation is correct, the competition was not equal, it was much tougher this time out. So instead of beating 98.2% of the field I only beat 95.4%.

Here is the 411 on Joe Kleinerman from an obituary written about him when he died 3 years ago on November 14th, 2003. One thing Mary mentioned not discussed in the blurb is that Kleinerman invented Age Group awards. I was somewhat surprised on the dearth of info on the Internet about him (no Wikipedia entry), from what Mary said he sounded quite interesting. Here is what there was:

"Kleinerman was among the founders of the organization [NYRR] in 1958 and in 1970 he was there to help Fred Lebow stage the first New York City Marathon, run entirely in Central Park. He went on to assist Lebow in turning the race into today's world-famous five-borough spectacular.

Kleinerman was also a strong proponent of women's long distance running and in 1967, he joined Vince Chiapetta and Nina Kuscsik, in leading a national movement to allow women to run races longer than a mile.

In recognition of his long devoted service to the running community and to the organization, the lobby of the New York Road Runners building in Manhattan was dedicated in his name in a ceremony this summer attended by many of his long time associates.

Joe Kleinerman was born Jan. 12, 1912 in Spring Valley, N.Y. and grew up in New York City. At 13, he began to run after his older brother Mike took him to the Millrose Games. In 1941 and 1942 he finished 10th in the Boston Marathon. The Millrose Athletic Association named him an assistant coach in 1941 and head coach in 1967.

One of his lasting legacies to the sport he loved is the Joe Kleinerman Scholarship Fund created by New York Road Runners this year. The college scholarship will be awarded to a New York City Public School boy and girl track athlete beginning next spring."