This was a pretty small race and looking around at the others who were there (and their pre-race routines), I figured I should line up toward the front (not in the front, but further up than I normally would). There were some people who worked their way up even further and I remarked to a friend that I doubted they'd be running sub-7 minute miles, but I didn't worry about it too much. As they were counting down time to race start, my HR immediately spiked up to 120 (from low-80's) and I laughed about it.

Everyone took off and sprinted out of the start chute. I let them all go and reminded myself to race my own race and be smart. Looking at my pace about a minute in, I knew I needed to pull it back a bit more and told myself not to have a one mile PR as part of a 5k race....that would be really stupid!! After a few minutes, I started reeling in those who had sprinted at the start and were starting to die. I settled into a comfortably hard pace and told myself to just keep it there.

Right before the first mile clicked off, I pulled even with my friend and told him, "keep me here" because I didn't want to fall off the pace when it started to hurt. The first mile clicked off and I looked at my watch -- 7:21. My first thought was "shit, was that too fast? Are you going to totally blow this? That was supposed to be more like 7:30!!" And then I just told myself, "keep it here, you feel fine. It hurts, but not that bad....you can do this."

I started pulling away from my friend, but was pretty sure it was because he was falling off and not that I was speeding up. I willed myself to not look at my pace, but to just run by feel. Coming toward the turn around, the race leaders started coming in the opposite direction. I saw a few guys and then the lead girl, and then a couple more guys....and that was it. So at that point, I was the second female (wtf?!?!) and within the top ten (again, wtf?!?!). I was curious where the third place female was and figured I'd get a look after making the turn around -- there were two girls pretty close to one another, but probably a minute back from me, so I figured if I could just keep the effort there, I could pull this off.

Second mile clicks off and I look at the split on my watch -- 7:29....and of course, I'm already in my head thinking, "oh crap, you're pacing this just as badly as you did the 10k! Why did you go out so fast on that first mile, dummy?? Okay, you got yourself into this mess, now you have to keep the effort here and try to salvage this....get to work!"

The third mile hurts, almost unbearably so. We got to this section that was slightly downhill, under tree coverage, and had a bit of a breeze....at that point, it might literally have been the best moment of my life. I enjoyed the brief reprieve from the pain and told myself to take advantage because it was just about to shift upward and into the sun. I refused to look at my pace and was convinced it was going to be in the 7:40's given how bad my legs hurt and how much I was ready to be done.

On the way back in, there's a long sweeping right turn and I was pretty sure once that was done, we'd be right at the turn into the finish....and when I saw I was wrong, I said "fuck" out loud....I was so ready to be done! At this point, I allowed myself to look at my pace and the distance and I saw my pace was holding steady at 7:20. I couldn't believe it! I was so happy, but I was also really ready to be done. I started thinking a two mile PR would be fine and I could just shut it down, but then I started giving myself pep talks in my head -- that went something like this: "don't give up, you can do this, make yourself proud....make Marc proud....give him some reason to think you aren't completely hopeless when it comes to running....give him a reason to not drop you as an athlete.....keep your breathing under control....is this shit almost done? Oh my god, there's the storage place!! And then you just take a right turn and an immediate left and you're done....holy shit, you're on track for a sub-23 5k, DO NOT LET UP!!!"

The third mile clicked off at 7:20 and I was so happy but in so much pain. I didn't actually think I had anything left to kick it in, but managed to finish the last minute at a 6:52 pace. As I crossed the finish line, one of the volunteers was holding out a pink piece of paper for me....I grabbed it and saw it said "2nd female" (which I already knew, but this made it official!). I was able to slow myself down and stop without running into anyone and leaned over with my hands on me knees and said "fuck....fuck....oh god, fuck, that hurt" and then I looked around hoping there were not children in the immediate area (there weren't!).


Really not much, maybe be a little mentally stronger in the middle when it starts to really hurt but you're not "almost there"

I went back out for a couple mile warm down run on the course....and it turned out to be a really fun experience because I got to cheer on the people who were still on their way back to the finish, and then I got to run with a few and encourage them after I turned around and was heading back toward the finish



I assume I would have been a little faster if this had been treated as an A race, but a 5k race is really not my focus (rather just a baseline race to gauge progress), and possibly could have been faster if it had been a bigger, more competitive (and chip timed) race. Though it wasn't excessively hot, it would have been nice to be 20F cooler! In fact, if we'd started at 7am instead of 10am, it would have been about 15F cooler, which would have been awesome!



I wish this race had been chip timed, but it turned out to be no big deal. That said, for $25, which included a shirt, pint glass, and three (full) beers, it's a damn good deal! I would definitely do this again -- it's in a pretty area (of course, I can't say I remember seeing much of it on the race! But I did enjoy it on the warm up, warm down, and while drinking beer after) and was a really fun morning.