Big River Racing TeamBig River Racing TeamBig River Racing TeamBig River Racing Team
  • About the Team
    • About the Team
    • Meet the Team
      • Men
      • Women
    • Joining the Team
    • Team Store
    • Big River Racing Team News
  • Schedules
    • Calendar
    • Training Schedule
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us

The Happiest Place on Earth

    Home Racing Team News Matt Lawder The Happiest Place on Earth
    NextPrevious

    The Happiest Place on Earth

    By admin | Matt Lawder | Comments are Closed | 24 May, 2014 | 0

    [Originally posted on May 19, 2014]

    I was recently down in Orlando for an academic conference (the 225th meeting of the Electrochemical Society for though interested in battery work) just across the road from Disney World. While most the of hotel complexes and Disney resorts down there each have there own one or two mile “jogging” paths to accommodate guests, none of these are connected to each other. Even though there may be four or five of these loops nearby each other and a simple quarter mile of sidewalk could turn a two mile loop into a four mile loop, all of these paths and walkways are isolated. I’m sure the hotels don’t want guests getting lost, but they are so close to having some great running routes without adding much infrastructure. Anyways I don’t want to digress about griping about running routes. I still had a great time running down there.

    However, it was on one of these hotel loops that the conference I was attending decided to host their first ever conference 5k. The loop was advertised as one mile loop, so the race organizers decided to do three loops and add on a bit at the end to make up the difference.  I was pretty excited to show of some of my running fitness to my academic colleague and I decided to run the race hard and use it like a good workout. About 60 people showed up for the run and before the race the organizers explained that each loop was a mile and we’d do three loops. I got out pretty well, but when I came through the mile in 4:33 in my trainers I knew something was a little amiss. I finished pretty strong, but ended up crossing the finish line in 14:12.

    Standing at the finish, I talked to the race organizer about the short course and they said, “yeah its a couple hundred feet short.” I was a little surprised why they didn’t just tell everyone the course was short. Maybe they hadn’t measured, maybe they didn’t care. It seemed a bit odd to me. As more people crossed the line a few thought they had run great times and other knew the course was short. Other peoples garmin’s had the course at 2.83 miles.

    The distance notwithstanding it was still a fun run and it got my thinking about how running might be different if other race distances were the norm instead of your typical 5k, half, and full marathon distances. How much different would even just the average runners experience be if the normal local road race was only 2 miles or 5 miles instead of 3.1. Do you think people would run more or less if they knew they only had to make it through 2 miles or were going to have to run all the way to 5 miles? How different would peoples training plans be if the marathon was 20 miles instead of 26.2? Even though the “5k” I ran in Orlando was only a little over a quarter mile short, it felt like it went by much quicker than a normal 5k. How much would the tactics differ for an elite 4.5k? Ultimately I think that track and cross country got most of their distances right. But even if it’s not an official IAAF distance I’m putting down 14:12 for my new 2.83 mile PR.

    -Matt Lawder

    Recent Workouts

    Other than the 5k race, I also ran a set of quarters with John Thompson 4x4x400 with 100 jog between reps and 3 minutes between sets. Ran them at the WashU track hitting 72-71 (set 1); 71-69 (set 2); 69-68 (set 3); 68-66 (set 4). Starting to feel quick for the first time in quite a while.

    No tags.
    NextPrevious

    Recent Posts

    • Frostbite Fun & Winter Wins

      Big River Racing Team members have racked up some strong performances the

      16 February, 2023
    • November Recap

      Big River Racing athletes continued to impress in November! On November 5,

      30 November, 2022
    • October Recap

      After strong performances in September and the beginning of October, the Big

      2 November, 2022
    Big River Racing

    Big River Racing is about running in its purest form. We encompass racing and pushing one’s limits, accepting anyone who shares our passion for running. The team is a dedicated group of like-minded individuals who train, race and socialize with the goal of improving the St. Louis running community through advocacy, openness and volunteerism. The team exists to support runners from post-collegiate athletes to those relatively new to the sport and anyone in between.
    Copyright © 2022 Big River Racing Team
    • About the Team
      • About the Team
      • Meet the Team
        • Men
        • Women
      • Joining the Team
      • Team Store
      • Big River Racing Team News
    • Schedules
      • Calendar
      • Training Schedule
    • Sponsors
    • Contact Us
    Big River Racing Team
    Manage Cookie Consent
    To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
    Functional Always active
    The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
    Preferences
    The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
    Statistics
    The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
    Marketing
    The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
    Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
    View preferences
    {title} {title} {title}