Although the temperatures are much improved over last weekend it was still hot and H.U.M.I.D. on Saturday and this race was at 5:00pm. I stupidly did not hydrate well and was thirsty going into the race. Dave and I did a short one mile warmup to the race start and added some fast pickups in there. For me, this was probably not enough warmup as, honest to goodness, it takes me at least four miles to feel comfortable in any run. But I was sweating really good and didn't want to do any more warmup.
The race was broken down into two waves: (1) men under 6:00 and women under 6:30 and (2) everyone else. So, this separated Dave and I. I would be in the first wave and he would be in the second. Looking at my wave, it was mostly men, and considering it was supposed to be under 6:00 for the men, I lined up behind them all and behind the high school girls. I thought that seemed smart. Turns out it wasn't. The gun went off and I took off like a bandit. Barely 200m into the race those high school girls were running six across and I couldn't get around them or through them. So I said, "coming right between you", touching two of them on their sides and squeezed between them. In my head I feel like I shoved them out of the way, but hopefully it wasn't. I felt bad the rest of the way. That's racing I guess. At the quarter mile mark I was at 1:24. Awesome. My goal was to go sub-6:00 if possible (6:02 is my PR on the same course) and I was right on track. I was feeling really thirsty by this point and was licking my lips a lot to try to get some saliva going. It wasn't working and I was just trying to stay focused. It's only 6 minutes, Meredith. At the half mile mark I was at 3:01. Geesh. Unlikely I'm going sub-6:00 at this point and I would have to go even to be able to at least match the PR. At the three quarter mile mark I was at 4:40. Come on legs! What the heck! Get moving! I did feel like I picked it up a little in the last quarter mile. In the end my final time was 6:13. It wasn't what I wanted; it wasn't what I think I am capable of; but who cares it was still fast for a 34 year old.
In the end I won my age group (out of three). This is my kind of race, though. It cost me $10 and there was no race packet, no t-shirt, no medals, no awards. Pure and simply running. And, they had cake at the end. Perfect.
2 comments:
Great job! You are so fast. I would love a race with cake at the end too!
As you know, that is also my kind of race! I am glad you found one that was not so over commercialized. I have never run a one mile race! It sounds like fun!
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