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July 02, 2006

Race to Taste 5K

This morning was the Race to the Taste 5K - I'd been looking forward to this for a few weeks, as I was pretty confident that I'd do well. I was shooting for something right around 28 minutes, which would give me a new PR. It was going to be good.

Then last week happened. I spent the entire week overtired and overstressed. I got 2 out of 4 workouts in - and the two workouts I missed were my speed workouts. I haven't done any sort of real speedwork since the marathon, so I was excited about getting back to the track this week. Except work had other plans for me, keeping me late on Wednesday. I had a stride workout on the schedule for Friday, but by the time Friday rolled around, I was too fried to even think about running. Oh well. I gave some vague thought to trying to get in a semi-long run on Saturday, but after spending the morning running errands around town on the bike, I just wasn't up to it. I was tired and dehydrated, and it was just too damn hot. Whatever.

Then I didn't sleep well Saturday night. I don't know what the problem was, other than the fact that I never sleep well the night before a race, regardless of how big or small it is. So, instead, I read. I put away some laundry. I did the dishes. I think more cleaning gets done in my apartment on the eve of a race than any other time. Finally, I managed to get a few hours of sleep in before the alarm went off.

When I left my apartment, the weather reminded me of Madison, except with more cloud cover. I took a moment to be thankful that it was cloudy, and that I was only running a 5K today. I arrived at the race right on time, about an hour before the start. I picked up my chip, checked my gear, and walked around for a bit before setting off on an easy 25-minute jog around the park. I threw in a few strides to get the legs moving. I made it back to the start area about 15 minutes before Go Time.

I lined up about 1/3 of the way from the front - a place I thought was a bit too far forward, until the gun went off and I was stuck in what felt like a slow, slow crowd. The plan was to run just under a 9:00 pace for the first two miles, then hit the last mile hard. I felt like I was going so much slower, that I spent too much time trying to get around people, especially considering how slippery the road was in spots from the pre-race rainfall. However, I hit mile 1 at 8:54 - right on time.

I felt like I slowed a bit during the second mile - I was definitely feeling the 16 miles of biking I'd done the day before in my quads, and I was getting tired fast. When I hit the 2nd mile at 8:38, I understood why. Oops. A little too fast, especially considering we were now running right into the wind.

I tried to slow it down, to lock in a pace, but I just couldn't. Finally, I stopped to walk for a bit. I didn't want to, but I had to catch my breath and "reset" my internal pacer. I walked for a bit, then started jogging again for the last 3/4 mile or so. At that point, I gave up on trying to get a PR, and decided to settle for finishing strong. I'd cranked the speed up too far too soon, and figured I'd just file this race away under "educational experience."

Happily, the walk break did exactly what I was hoping it would. I was cruising along, feeling better, but having no idea how fast I was going. I thought I'd slowed down, because I felt better. When we made the last turn back onto Columbus with a half-mile or so to go, I picked up the pace a little bit - I was going to give the end of this race everything I had. When I hit the last turn at the 3 mile marker, the clock said 27:30. My PR was 28:32. If I could cover the last .1 mile in under a minute, I could still PR.

I couldn't believe it! I rounded the corner and turned on the sprint, only to find that it had rained again and the road was slick. OK. Stay off the paint, find a straight line to the finish and GO GO GO. I was hurting. I was feeling like crap. I was going to hang on and push it in to the finish as fast as I possibly could....

I crossed the line right around 28:15, and headed over to the chip retrieval station, where I played the superfun game of "Don't Barf on the Volunteers." I kept moving. I kept breathing. I grabbed a Gatorade and a banana, but passed on the bagel (a move I'd regret in about an hour when my appetite returned). Then, as I was exiting the finish chute, I saw what must have been a gift from heaven - a guy passing out freeze pops. Big, giant tubes of frozen sugar water. Genius! I thanked the guy profusely, only to realize that I had no way to open the darn thing. No matter! I had teeth, and I was going to use them. I was determined to get into that freeze pop, and nothing - not even vacuum-sealed plastic - was going to stop me. Ahhhh. Tasty. Lovely.

I spent the next 15 minutes or so walking and jogging back along the course, half looking for a friend of mine and half making a feeble attempt at cooling down. My coach had recommended a 1-2 mile jog as a cool-down post-race, and while I was all over that plan in theory, in practice? My legs were just done. I did jog more than I walked of the mile or so that I covered before I found my people, so I called it good.

I grabbed my stuff from the gear check, and we watched the kids races to kill time before the raffle. I'd heard that the prizes were worth sticking around for, and I couldn't use my free Taste tickets until it opened at 11, so what the heck. The prizes were indeed fantastic, although I didn't win any. At least I got to spend some quality time with Running Jayhawk, Out of Shape Guy, and Frank (Go CRU!).

Before the raffle started, I was able to get over to sneak a peak at the official results (yay technology!). My official chip time was 27:44, which was a 47 second PR, not to mention good enough for 685th place out of 1500 runners/walkers, and 62nd place out of 215 in my age group. Definitely a good end to a less-than-stellar week.

Posted by Dawn at July 2, 2006 07:40 PM

Comments

Posted by: Frank at July 2, 2006 08:07 PM

Posted by: Full Metal Lunchbox at July 3, 2006 09:25 AM

Posted by: RunningJayhawk at July 3, 2006 10:15 AM

Posted by: Nicole at July 4, 2006 10:09 AM