S4E87 Slickville Coal Mine Climb 5k

Ehh finished 2nd. But happy wuth it. Time is decpetive. 19:26.3 official time. The course though is hard and slows you down so i would absolutely say this would be a 18 or under 5k performance on a flat course.  This had 400 feet both up and down. There was two coal pile climbs that you had actually climb up. Part of the draw as to why i went. Plus hills all over and some grvael road. I didnt know the course, if i did i could have ran it faster. Wasnt sure where the hill where or turns wwre so was at a disadvantage. We were at 510 or lower for 1st 3 mins and it was insane being sub 5 so early. Had 2 in front of me. Passed one of them like mile 2. I was literally on 1st's heels on the coal hill. Race was any longer i would have got him and i actually should have got him. Just wasnt sure what was left and where i needed to kick so i never kicked. I was still right on his heels. But lost and pulled back last few second so gap in time was bigger then it actually was. I did hang back early and let the two ahead lead me where to go since it had no markings. Just a few volunteers. So if i was in lead id been lost to where to go. Little upset i lost it but, fine with it because i had fun and felt great. Knowing i didnt kick and was in it till last 10 yards was promising on such a hard 5k course. Had to be top 3 harddest 5k ive done.

#coal #coalclimb #slickville #5k #fireman #fesival #runningevent #race #run #fun #pancakes #syrup #amazingpeople #almost #discgolf #tv #speed #fast

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Just did the Slickville coal mine climb 5K.
You see behind me you see the Slickville sign.
Finished second overall in 1926.3 Time is a little
deceiving since it is a very, very tough 5K course.

(00:22):
It's got about 400 feet of climbing and descent through
town for the most part that we got these two coal mine climbs.
Flip this, see, see this, see the sign we're on, like the flat
top part, You actually have to climb up this and then the

(00:46):
backside of the other one. I'll go over there in a second
to show you the other one because I think that one's a
little bit steeper on the backside that you actually
climb. This middle part's just a little
dip and then we ran down that way to finish it up, but wasn't
sure what to expect. I've been wanting to do this

(01:06):
course for probably four or fiveyears now.
I just never got a chance to do it.
There's a beautiful warning out.I know looking at the times they
were always in like the 2022 range for the winning time.
I was like, oh, I could beat that.
But again, times are a little bit deceiving because of the
climbs and the long climbs and stuff like that.

(01:28):
And then with this added coal mine climb option definitely
slows you down by like 2030 seconds at least.
So yeah, I think the way I ran today definitely could have been
a low 18 in the seventeens. It was like a flat 5K course,
but the 1926 definitely would have been, you know, would have

(01:54):
mirrored a flat 5K course. I know once we started out, two
kids took off the winner and then the kid had finished third.
They were jetting out the gate. I know when I looked at my watch
like a tenth or two into the race, my watch said five O 5 for
a pace. So they were doing sub 5 minute

(02:18):
like first mile, like we'll see probably between a half mile and
7/10 they were, I would say they're probably doing a sub 5
minute pace because they were breaking away from me a little
bit like 10 seconds or so. So kept them pretty much rude in
the in the whole time. I didn't let them break away

(02:41):
from me till the end. Didn't catch 3rd place to about
two miles in. One of the part of the reasons
why I had pushed harder early onis because I didn't know the
course what to expect and peoplekept telling me it's going to be

(03:01):
hilly and it's a challenging course.
There's a lot of hills. Why I didn't know where the
hills were, you know what the hills actually entailed.
So I'm glad I definitely hung back early on and didn't turn
and burn too much. Just played it smart a little
bit. All before I forget, there's a

(03:23):
little turn around here at the edge.
There's an American flag that you actually have to go around,
see the yellow, go around there,head back down.
I'll just go down the climb. Now you get something different.
So you have to watch because youdefinitely have to get your

(03:44):
footing. You have to find like the parts
where like the water ran down, it made some ruts in it so you
could step your feet in it and get some actual traction.
Because if you if you try to go one of the flat parts, you're
not really going to have good footing.
So you definitely have to play it a little bit smart.
I'm not going to go down throughthe I'm going to go around a

(04:06):
little bit, make it a little biteasier here.
But we did go down that way to finish and you could go an
easier way. I guess they call it.
I guess what they call what we want was the shortcut, you know,
and you can actually stay on this stuff and make it longer or

(04:29):
easier or whatever. But I think if you actually did
the 2 coal mine climbs, it actually made it a lot more
challenging and slower for you. Who knows?
So yeah, let's see if we can geta good view here.

(04:56):
So I don't know if the video really captures a good view.
So yeah, so you see how we came in, You see the yellow arrows
and we came up straight up this,which obviously is going to take

(05:19):
a few seconds to do, come down, do this dip and then you go up
the other one. There's the two like coal mine
climbs. I guess you can go straight
around, see the bottom there. If you go around, come up the

(05:40):
backside, that's an option to get up to the top and go around
the flag. That's I guess the flatter, non
challenging part of the course, but I obviously did the
challenging part because I came here today because of the coal
mine climb, wanted to see what it was all about.

(06:01):
So yeah, when we took off, there's two kids took off and as
I said, I hung back for a while.Probably mile and a half two
mile range is when I started reeling them back in because
again, I didn't know where the heels were.
So I didn't want to burn up and I wanted, I didn't know what the

(06:21):
course was like. I didn't have a map of the
course. So I didn't want to go out and,
you know, in the lead and take awrong turn.
And I noticed them a couple of times pointing at the volunteers
like which way to go and they didn't even know.
Even though the one kid won lastyear, he wasn't like sure of

(06:46):
himself either. So I was like, I'm definitely
not going to go on front and getlost or get sent the wrong way.
So again, planet smart. It's like I said, I hung back
for about that mile and a half, two mile range.
When we hit this like Gravel Rd., there was a nice incline

(07:07):
because right at 2 miles there was a water stall, an aid
station, whatever. If you hear that engines
revving, they have like a car show going on down for the
Slickville days or whatever. Some people revving their
engines down there. Anyway, that's when I started

(07:28):
reeling in the kid who finished third.
I saw him slowly dying. I knew both of them weren't
going to last the way they went out early on, so I reeled this
third place kid in there like right before the aid station.

(07:50):
He's like right behind me though.
There was 2 turkeys there at that aid station.
As I said, it was just kind of weird that there's like 2
turkeys just there in the middleof the course.
And then the guy who won was maybe a couple of seconds ahead
of me, but I was slowly gaining on him.

(08:11):
And I felt pretty confident there.
I was like, I'm going to catch him eventually here in the next
mile, you know, just don't overdo it yet.
And then there was a downhill where I expected him to take off
on the downhill and use all thatfree speed, and he didn't.
And that's really when I caught him back up.
It was like right on his heels. And by the time we got to this

(08:32):
section, it's like coal mine climb, you know, dirt section.
I was basically right behind him, maybe like 2 steps behind
him. And then the first climb, yeah,
he maintained like the two step advantage.
But on that second one here, by the sign, I was like right on

(08:56):
his heels, like wherever his foot was, like my hand was right
there as he was lifting up, my hand was going there.
So I was like, right with him, pushing him, giving him a little
pressure there. Then as we popped back out onto
the trail and back through town last like, like 4/10 maybe.

(09:18):
Wasn't sure we wouldn't have anymore turns.
And he just broke away a couple of seconds.
And I just wasn't sure. I misjudged myself.
I didn't know where I was going to do that last little Sprint,
you know, or push. I was like, I didn't want to do
it too soon and blow up and I guess I just never used it and

(09:43):
he ended up finishing ahead of me.
But I was definitely on his ass and like 2 and a half, 2.6.
I think if I knew the course where the heels were, I
definitely could have won today.I was just a little bit of a
disadvantage and again, I didn'tuse that last little kick coming

(10:07):
back towards the finish line. Wasn't sure where I wanted to
use it at. So I sort of screwed myself
there, but not a big deal. And also was kind of tossing
around the idea of saving some energy and legs for later in the
day when I go to run for the Trail 7K in Dealtown.

(10:29):
So I was like, you don't want toblow, blow yourself up and then
have a bad race later as well. So that kind of ran through my
mind as well. But either way, got a cool
trophy, happy with that, happy Icame.
Definitely love the course firstchallenging it is.
I definitely really enjoy it. Wouldn't do it again next year

(10:54):
if I can. Well, just good atmosphere and
stuff like that. I just screwed up too much.
Next year if I had come back, get to come back and I have the
GPX file where I know where the turns are and where the hills
are going to be. Definitely going to play on my
strategy a heck of a lot better and be prepared a lot better.

(11:15):
So, but in 1926 for this course,like I said is really good.
It might not sound good, but youdefinitely want to knock a good
minute, minute and a half easilyoff that time for time
adjustment for the difficulty ofthe course.

(11:37):
And when you're running on this dirt and climbing up the hills,
you're definitely not running upthem.
You actually have to slow down because you're not getting good
enough footing. We can just run up them,
especially in Rd. shoes because you're not going to wear trail
shoes. If you had maybe trail shoes,
you could run up them, but then you'd be slower on the road.

(11:58):
So it's kind of one of those things as well.
I'm trying to think other than that, you do get some pancakes
and sausage afterwards that theymake.
It was really good. They had some awesome syrup too,
so I'm definitely happy with that.

(12:20):
It might be about it kind of a ramble recap, but I wanted to
come out here by the Slickville sign and show you the actual
climbs in person just to see what we ran through.
Give you an idea of like why thetime was slow.

(12:40):
I might actually go video the course, haven't decided yet, but
we'll see. That way I could study it for
next year. Either way, good race, good
time. People should check it out for
next year.