95 degrees or so at race time (6pm). Humid as a mofo. Sunny sunny sunny.
Sounds like a great evening for a race, yes? No, not really... but it had been a couple of months since I'd gotten a "free" race shirt, and I was jonesing for a new one! My scheduled training run for the day was 3 miles, so I thought I may as well sign up.
As I like to do, I
I went about the earlier part of my day as normal, but realized around 2pm that I hadn't really had a drop of water all day. Ooops! Sista needs to hydrate for running in 973% humidity and 432 degree temperatures! It was a busy day- I worked and then I donated plasma. Sometimes people ask me if I should be donating on days I workout, because it might not be safe or it might deplete my energy. I don't have any scientific evidence, but from all I have read, it IS safe to donate. I have never had any ill effects from it, and I always feel fine after donation.
I got to Scheels about an hour before the race to pick up my packet and meet up with Angie and Beth. Suddenly I was overcome with the thought of "I SO don't want to run this." Great positive attitude. I think I also repeated about 50 times something about HATING 5k's. It was just so hot out, I was getting cranky. OH and it was windy too!
Anyway, we made our way to the starting line, I grumbled a bit more, and it was time to run!
So I ran. And it was hot. And it felt hard! And about 1/2 mile in to my run, I realized WHY it felt so hard- my Garmin showed that my average pace thus far was UNDER 8 min/ miles. It was somewhere around 7:50 something. What the WHAT?!?! I don't DO THAT. This might have been great and awesome if this was a low-pressure training run, but I knew that I couldn't maintain such a pace, and I had a feeling I was draining ALL of my energy and might have some struggles near the end of the race.
I slowed down, but still ended up finishing that first mile in under 9 minutes. Holy cow! And I was still feeling pretty good after mile one. I knew there was going to be a water station somewhere between mile one and two, and I figured I would just keep running till the water station and then let myself have a quick walk break (since I haven't really mastered the art of running and drinking).
Started to run out of steam before I even hit the water station, so I took a quick 15 second walk break and made my way to the water. I drank half and dumped half on my head. And suddenly this felt like the longest 3.1 miles ever. Starting up again felt tough and from here on out, I really struggled.
I finished mile 2 with about a 9:30 pace (I don't have exact stats and will tell you why soon).
The last mile of the race was a mental battle. I was tired and hot and zapped. I took several walk breaks and slowly watched my "average pace" on the Garmin creep higher and higher. I forgot to do the exact calculation prior to the race to know what pace I needed to run under 30 minutes, and I really wish I would have! In my mind I was thinking I needed around 9:42 pace to go Sub-30 (it's really like 9:37). So as I was run/walking the last mile, I was just trying to keep my average pace under that 9:42 mark.
I crossed the finish line in 30:26.
Okay, BEFORE I complain about how I didn't meet my sub-30 minute goal, let me say how excited I am that I PR'd like CRAZY in this race! I ran the St Patty's Day 5k in 32:17, so I PR'd this race by 1:51. Not too shabby to slice that much time off a 5k!
But COME ON, I was THISCLOSE to going Sub-30. Perhaps if I would have known a more exact pace to keep, I could have mentally got myself to run that. My own fault.
For the next half hour after the race, I focused my energy on not passing the hell out. On more than a few occasions, I started to get dizzy and see spots (I'm no "doctor" or anything, but friends, I think that's no good!). After I finally cooled myself to the point where I wasn't literally bursting into flames, I felt a little better.
I checked the race results when I got home and it turns out I was 5th out of 43 in my age group! I finished 83 out of 273 runners! That might not sound super duper impressive, but to finish in the top half is HUGE for me! Especially since speed is SO not my strength. I'm much more comfortable running 10 easy miles than I am running 3 fast miles.
So, overall, I'm really proud of myself! I feel like my hard work is paying off and it's a huge motivator to keep pushing myself.
One sad note about the race is immediately following the race, my poor poor Garmin locked up on me. It got all sorts of wonky and wouldn't let me upload my run to my computer. OF COURSE. The ONE run I really wanted to look at stats and upload it to Runkeeper, and I couldn't.
I had to call Garmin and they were super nice and helpful and even though I think the problem was fixed after doing a master reset, I opted to have it sent in and replaced with a new one since it was still under warranty. This was the first issue I'd had with it, so I'm not saying it's not still a great watch... just unfortunate that it had to konk out on me after a great race! Lucky for me I can borrow my hubby's Garmin till my new one arrives!
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