Monday, May 24, 2010

Fastest 5k EVER

Saturday morning I woke up super early to run a 5k about 30 minutes away. All my other Tri training buddies were in their own triathlons this weekend that I didn't enter (I have one in 2 weeks, and 4 weeks). My goal was to run it in sub-20 minutes which comes out to a 6:26 mile. I don't think I put a time in like that since my XC days in HS.

The gun goes off and about 10 people (kids, well HS kids) sprint out in front of me. I was like, "screw this, I'm not sprinting, I'll just wait for them to slow down." And, by the 1/2 mile mark, they did. I caught up with the smaller group and ran with them. I hit the first mile at 5:51. I say to the guy next to me "man, that first mile was way too fast." The second mile I hit around 12:20 which was more my goal pace. I passed a few more people and only saw one guy in front of me. If I would have known he was in my age group, I would have tried to pass him.

We turn the corner back on the main road and I'm searching for the finish. By this time my legs are starting to burn. I'm starting to hurt but trying my hardest to hang on. I passed a kid around mile 2.5 and when we hit mile 3, they called out my split of 18:32, then I hear 18:37. Shit, he's only 5 seconds back. “This HS kid better not try and catch me!” Only 1/10 of a mile to go and I had 1:28 to run it in. I round the last corner into the parking lot and see the finish... clock is ticking. It's at 19:40 when I see it and at this point I'm not concerned about the kid behind me because I left him in the dust. I cross the finish line in 19:54 (6:23/mile) and hit my watch. The GPS was pretty accurate and red 3.12 (an actual 5k is 3.11). I think the mile splits were off by a few feet but regardless, I beat my goal and survived.

I check out the finisher board and, holy shit, I came in 3rd place. Now, this is a small town race with only 86 entries, but still, I was happy. Then I look closer, the winner, some 15 year old kid beat me by over 2 minutes! Then, even close, I saw the 2nd place guys is also 29 years old. Damn it! I really thought I won my age group. So I'm telling people I finished 3rd overall, not 2nd in my age group because I feel 3rd place overall sounds better than a age group victory.

After the race we are hanging around for the awards, and they finally start congregating outside, about an hour later. Then they tell us all the 2nd place age group awards were misplaced or something and someone went out to buy some gift cards. They called my name for 2nd place in my age group and I didn't even get to go up to the front and get an award. I sat there, while people clapped, and wasn't happy. They told us that we will get it in the mail this week. Honestly, I would have rather gotten a medal because that is actually a tangible object, not $25 to a local pizza joint. (and by local, i mean in the small town 30 min away from where I live, so to use it, we have to drive there).

On baby news, we find out the sex of our baby on June 14th!

3 comments:

  1. That is amazing!! Did you train to meet your goal for this race, or do you always make it a habit to run your ass off all the time? :)

    (The Harrisburg-Brick-Brandishing-Lunatic probably helped me improve my speed some.)

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  2. I didn't know that I was going to run this race till last Thursday. I realized all you triathletes would be doing your tri thing so I had to find something to do. My goal for any race is to go as fast as I can, depending on the distance.

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  3. Hm... I guess that seems kind of obvious, to always go as fast as you can. I didn't know if you had signed up weeks ago and been working specifically toward a goal for this particular 5k :)

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