Yesterday I did yet another 5K. Memorial Day is always a celebration of my running. One of my first races was on Memorial Day in 2001. Last year this 5K was in the first race I did after I had the baby. This year I continued the traditional Memorial Day celebration by doing the Field of Heroes 5K again.
After a short warm up, I lined up near the start and took off like a bat out of hell. To make sure I was actually racing, I put a sticker over my watch so I could not see the pace. Regardless, I knew I was running fast, faster than I was probably capable of holding for a full three miles. Frankly, it doesn't matter. The 5K is hard to negative split. I'd rather go out hard and see how long I can hold on.
Turns out, it wasn't that long. Not soon after the one mile mark I was hurting. And I should have been. My watch clocked me at a 6:52 first mile. The second mile had many twists and turns in it and I used it as the opportunity to slow down a bit. I caught a girl in the second mile to get into 5th place female, but I was also passed at the same time by another chick, so I stayed in 6th. One of the turns was 180 degrees down a bridge ramp. Looking back I saw that I was not catchable by another woman so I slowed down some more.
Mile 2 - 7:17
Finally the last mile and I was hating this race big time. I kept thinking, 'I'll take a half marathon any day. This sucks!' Around another curve I looked back to see a girl in a pink shirt gaining on me. Shoot! Get moving Meredith! At this point I knew where I was as I had warmed up on this part of the course. I dug down deep, as deep as I could without yacking (coach would have been so proud).
Mile 3 - 7:19
The last 0.1 of the race I was screaming hard to the finish line. I saw the clock just click over 22:00 as I crossed the timing mat. Wow! I didn't expect that. My PR is in the mid-21:00s so I did alright.
Total 22:02
6th place female
Just a few hours later I was already thinking about my next one, which is probably in a few weeks. I have many on the schedule this year. I am so stupid. :)
1 comment:
You go, girl. I had to laugh about the yacking part and thought I'd tell you why:
At camp in the 90's (I know, hush) we had a foreign staff member named Yak. During First Aid training, Scott's brother Kelly was taking his turn on the dummies and said how you turn the victim away from you so that they vomit away from you, right? Except he said "yack". So when it was Yak's turn, she looked at him and turned her dummy away from herself and smirked that her victim would "Kelly" away from her. Haha!
Every once in awhile Scott will mention feeling like he has to yack and I'll say something smart about Kellying.... 0=)
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