Sunday, July 10, 2011

Run to the Lake - 5k

Run to the Lake benefits Eden Medical Center's Trauma Center. They extended discounts to Law Enforcement and First Responders and they had a kids race, so it seemed like a no-brainer for us to sign up for it. Thankfully, the weather today was much cooler than last week's run. I should start by saying that they advertise this run as Flat and Fast.... um, it's uphill (okay not a huge hill) on the way out, I think it was about 122 feet of ascent on the way out but then mostly downhill or flat on the way back. Luckily for me, I knew this already so I was prepared for it.

I did actually have a plan going into the race (that's a new one!) that I tried my best to execute but didn't turn out exactly the way I had hoped for many reasons. Remember last week when I mentioned I had a nervous stomach, more so than usual... I now know that I can blames this on my family. There are always some nerves on race day, but most of the time I get up while the rest of the family is sleeping and sneak out before they wake up, so I'm just responsible for myself. Imagine this morning, my husband wakes up sore as hell from wrenching on his truck for weeks to try and get it running again, one child who doesn't want to get up and another who is actually eager to get dressed. I felt like leaving them all at home and just going myself. Thanks to our unmotivated runners and Mom having to do everything to get everyone and everything out the door we left 15 minutes later than our goal time. When we finally arrived we have to assemble the double stroller since we have to take it apart to get it into my car. They are already asking people to line up to do warm-up and Scott takes off to use the bathroom leaving me at the car with the kids. Gee, thanks for asking if I have to go! I loudly pronounce that I will just hold it for the entire run to make my point. As we head down the hill, there is hardly a line since everyone is already at the start line and I tell him I'll see him later... like maybe at the end of the race. Anyway, by the time I get down to the start line we are in the back of the line. I look around clearly get the idea that a lot of these people are clearly walking, awesome. When the horn goes off there is absolutely no movement where we are at... none. I give Scott a look and sort of feel sorry for him as I start pushing my way through people who are barely moving so I can cross the start line... good luck with that double stroller I think. Once I finally got a point where I had some breathing room it appeared that I was now at the back of the running pack and I wondered how long it would take Scott to pass me, we were at the .25 mile mark when he finally made his past me. So far, so good, my plan was to maintain a nice easy pace on the way out and take advantage of the downhill on the way back and hopefully maintain a 10 minute mile. Ha, not sure what I was thinking. Mile 1 was actually pretty decent at a 10:48 pace but Mile 2 basically shot my plan to hell with an 11:18 pace. At some point I tired of the slow and slight uphill section. After the water station we got a little downhill portion before the turn-around so I knew I had a little more uphill to navigate before I would have more downhill for the return. I remember thinking at one point that I wasn't even listening to my music, it wasn't inspiring me, this sucked, and why I had I been so worried about changing out some of the tunes last night. I was unfocused and just didn't care, I was getting a side cramp and took several short walk breaks, but it just seemed like it would all be over faster if I ran instead of walking. At the end a lot of people passed me, people I had passed on the out section were passing me coming in. The downhill was nice but than we would reach a flat section and it just seemed like so much work to keep moving forward. It was super nice to see Scott and the girls at the finish line cheering me on, instead of booking it in I ran over to get high-fives and then I sprinted to the finish line.

Glad to be done, I was actually pretty pleased with my time, despite my miserable experience on the course I think there is a trend occurring, I am getting faster, this race was pretty close to my Finish Chelsea's Run time which is my best time in 2 years. I have been disappointed to watch my 5k times getting slower and slower so, it's been really nice to see me increase my speed in these last couple of races.

I guess something went amiss with timing, I'm not entirely sure but they didn't hand out Age Group awards because of it, which is cool because it looks like Scott came in 3rd in his age group! They are actually mailing out awards because of whatever timing issue there was. He came in at 24 minutes, a 7:45 mile.

Trying to get some love from the family!

Coming into the finish

Kylie loving every minute of it

Sydney taking it very seriously

As long as their current reports are correct I finished at 33:39 and came in 18/55 in my AG.

2 comments:

  1. Great job to all of you!!!! Yeah I remember thinking that course wasn't quite as flat as I expected either...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah Meredith! Nice to see you guys today. It was fun but I wouldn't call it flat either! I loved seeing Kylie run her race - she looked like she was having such a great time! Too bad we left before Sydney's serious run.

    ReplyDelete