Race, race, race!
In short I ROCKED my 5k race today. The EndurRace was great! To sum it all up I finished in 30:08 according to my chip time or 30:02 according to my Garmin. I’m going to go with my Garmin time.
I arrived at my race nice and early. I left my house at 5pm and arrived at like 5:20 which left me 40 minutes to walk around. I went inside to use the bathroom (I get nervous) and looked at their race boards. Since it’s part of a running series they have poster boards with photos from each of the other races. The ones that are still to be run this year have boards from 2011, but the Refridgeeighter race has 2012 photos. I was a bit nervous being there solo, but guess who I found on the race board? No it wasn’t me, it was my coach Cecilia! So she was with me in photo form! That made me really happy.
My pre-race thoughts while I waited for the race to start in the sea of people were the following:
- “Holy crap is it cold.”
- “Look at all the spandex.”
- “Oh my God, little kids in running shoes are so cute! I wonder how old Lilly will have to be to wear a pair.”
- “Wow, old guy + spandex, short shorts = more than I needed to know.”
- Bounce, bounce, bounce.
- “Stupid garmin why aren’t you working!!! Grrrr.”
So as you can tell my watch decided to be a bit cranky at the start of the race, but I didn’t let that phase me and it was working a few steps past the starting line. I started out around the middle of the pack, though that wasn’t intentional, but it worked out well. I had a lot of people passing me during the first city block, but then that stalled and only another 5 or 6 passed me the whole race. After the first km I actually started to pass people. I don’t think I’ve ever passed so many people in a race, and this was a really short race. I think part of it is, that people ran out way too fast and then fizzed out.
As I ran, I looked at my watch every now and then, but really tried to ignore it, and focus on my body. I didn’t bring my ipod so I could really focus on my breathing, mostly because I cramped during my easy 5km run in the morning (yes I ran 5k in the morning because my coach said I should run 10k today in prep for next week’s race – you don’t have to tell me I’m crazy since both my mother and husband already have). I kept encouraging myself the way Cecilia does while I run. I kept reminding myself that this is only a 5k – that labour was so much longer – that Steve and the girls are so proud of me – that I am a strong, tough, mother – that I can handle anything. I also, kept lying to myself and kept telling myself it was just a little speed run, you can do it. I ran 7 mile tempo and speed runs, so 5k, whatever! As I was running past the 2km, I started to pass a lot of people. I think I counted at least 20 people that I passed in the last 3km which was a bit of a shock to me. I couldn’t help but smile to myself every time I passed another woman, and for some reason they were all wearing purple. Note to self, don’t wear purple to races!
During this race, I noticed that I was rocking my pace! My 5 kilometres broke down as follows: 6:00 – 6:13 – 6:08 – 5:54 – 5:48. So as you can see I ended up with my usual pattern of running fast at the start, slower in the middle and booked it at the end. In the last kilometre I really gave it all I have to try to break the 30 minute mark but it wasn’t meant to be this race. I’m not disappointed though. My best training time was 32:37 so I knocked my best 5k down by 2:35 which is pretty awesome. I have other 5k races this year that I can try to beat the 30 minute mark. So now I have a new goal for my next race.
You can find my race stats here! This race was the first race that I did not come in last or second last so I need to brag a bit! In my age group 25-29 I came in 11/19 which means 8 young women were behind me!! That is so awesome. For women overall I came in 80/133 which means 53 women finished behind me! Overall, I came in 232/305 participants! I feel some amazing about my accomplishment today.