Race Report: We ran a 5K!

Rich and I ran our first road race of 2013 this past weekend.  It was also the first race that we both participated in without the girls in the triple jogger, which we no longer have.  (Sob)  My sister-in-law graciously agreed to watch the girls at the race start/finish so that we could both run.

A few things to keep in mind while you read this:

1. I had just (finally!) reached a long run of 3 miles two weeks before this 5K.  (And to think that my long run used to be 7-10 miles.)  (Sob)
2. I've been concentrating on slowly building up my mileage and haven't focused on speedwork.

So I need to give a little bit of background about the night before the race.  I could just say that I wasn't feeling 100% and leave it at that but that could sound like a lame excuse.  As a mother, I have my scars and my war stories.  We all do.  What's disheartening is having those scars from a baby that wasn't mine to keep.  I suffered physical damage when Abbey was born and more than 7 years later, I'm still dealing with it.  Without going into the gory details, let's just say that I have GI type issues and GI type issues are sometimes related to your stomach and sometimes when I have these issues, I throw up.  And that's exactly what happened at midnight the night before the race.

The kids woke me up in the morning and I still felt kind of queasy, which is a bit unusual when I have these "attacks."  They can be draining but by the next morning, I'm usually okay.  I tried to get up and get going but it was tough.  And I couldn't really eat.  I told Rich that worse case scenario, I would just sit with the girls and not run but inside I was mad that I felt so crummy, especially since I had been looking forward to this. And it's not easy to coordinate help with the kids.



(iPhone photo.  Don't know why I feel the need to disclose that but I do.)

I decided to run.  I'd had big plans to run around the parking lot and warm up before the race but I ended up needing to conserve energy so I watched the other runners run around the parking lot warming up.  The day before the race, Rich had asked me what my goals were.  Is there a Type A runner who doesn't have goals?

• 33 minutes - Easy goal
• 31 minutes - 'Should be able to' goal   (I ran 3 miles in 31:28 the week before.)
• 30 minutes - Stretch goal

Rich told me to start off slow and save my energy.  If I had any left, I could pick up the pace at the end.  That's like placing a bowl of ice cream in front of me and telling me not to eat any of it.

There were just over 200 runners so this was a small race.  About a quarter of a mile into it, everyone had settled into their racing pace.  There was a guy running next to me at my pace but he was having trouble breathing so I knew he wouldn't be with me for long.  At a half a mile, I passed a group of 6 runners.  There were now two women in front of me.  One was wearing a bright orange shirt with "Just do it" on the back.  So I did it - I passed them both.  At this point, I felt comfortable with my pace but I couldn't tell if I was running a 10 minute mile or a 12 minute mile.  It wasn't hard but it wasn't easy.

Mile 1 - 10:16 - I passed another large group of runners and was a bit surprised when I checked my watch.

I came to a water station around 1.5 miles and although I was thirsty, I was afraid that if I took in any water, it would just come right back up.  I dumped the water on my head and shirt to cool me off.

Mile 2 - 20:04 - Suddenly, I was starving.  My body started to rebel.  You want me to do this with no food!

I've run this course before so I knew that the last mile was a bit hilly.  I managed the last hill without walking and thought that I could possibly pull off 30 minutes.  Unfortunately, with about a quarter of a mile left, I felt like I was going to throw up so I had to slow down.



Mile 3.1 - 31:24

Meh.  I'll take it considering how I felt.  Rich, on the other hand, finished in 25 minutes!  He also recently returned to running after a brief hiatus and has been training for a 7 mile race next month.  There's another 5K next month that I hope to run in.