Run To Me

The one thing that's annoying about road races is that it's almost always scheduled early in the morning. My 5K race started at 8:40. I wanted to give myself an hour to get there, and arrive an hour early. That meant, I had to leave at 6:30, which meant I should be up before 6, which is a lot earlier than I'd rather be up.

In any case, I managed to wake up, get prepared and head to the Metro. We didn't leave until about 7 AM, which was about half an hour after I wanted to go, but it meant we'd still arrive about 7:40 AM, which was an hour before.

Sunday was supposed to be sunny and somewhat warm. Turns out Saturday was sunny and warm, even though rain was forecast the whole day. The forecast changed on Saturday, alas. Sunday then became the rainy day.

When you're on the Metro that early, and there are some 10,000 participants in the race, you expect to see a lot of people on the Metro heading to the race. That was nice, as I could follow them.

As I sat, there were these two girls trying to contact their friend. He eventually joined the group at a Metro stop.

He seemed like a nerd from the 1970s. Long, curly, Garry Shandling-like hair, with shirt and shorts like he was in a gym class. His shoes seemed ten years old. But the guy had nipple piercings which the girls were, ahem, playing with. He was one of those guys who seemed to know how unhip he was, and there was a certain hipness in that.

When we arrived, there were lots of runners at the Metro exit, who hadn't taken the escalator up. They were stretching. Some of us thought it was because it was pouring rain.

It wasn't.

It turns out there aren't that many places to stretch, and it was cold, and so being at the bottom of the Metro stretching kept the wind off you, and allow you to stretch on a place that didn't have mud underneath.

My first order of business was to drop my bag off. Alas, the race doesn't permit backpacks to be dropped off. Instead, they give you a small plastic bag and a label, and you can put stuff (including a tiny backpack if you had one) in it.

I barely had anything. Just the race information that was mailed to me, and that was about it.

It turns out an hour is quite a while to wait before the race, especially since it was drizzly and cold. Fortunately, I had a long-sleeve running shirt as well as long running pants. I had thought I would remove them for the run, but it was too cold to do that. I also brought a cap to keep my head warm and the rain off my face (fortunately, it was only a mild drizzle).

I should have brought my camera. It turns out I have a camera case with a clasp that can be attached to a belt. The day before, I had bought a racer's equivalent of a fanny pack, only it's much smaller, and can only hold a minimum of things. I carried a phone, ID, a credit card, and some cash, and that was pretty much it. I left my main keys in the car, and brought the spare.

We then lined up for the run. I figured I wouldn't be one of the fast ones so I lined up somewhere in the middle.

As we started, I went at a very casual pace. The only problem was knowing where I was in the race. After running a while, I thought I had run at least a mile, but was surprised to discover that I hadn't because they yelled out a mile long after I thought I had reached a mile. They also said the time was 12 minutes, which means I was running slower than I thought.

I was starting to bring up the pace, though I was breathing heavier. The second mile wasn't so bad. I felt my feet were reasonably good given the new shoes, and they weren't hurting me.

By the third mile, I was feeling winded, but I felt I could hold on til the end. Somewhere near the end, I picked up the pace quite a bit, but it turns out I couldn't sustain it, so I had to slow down a bit, but as I neared the last hundred yards or so, I again sprinted to the end.

The final time was 32 minutes, 31 seconds, or an average of about 10 minutes 30 seconds a mile. That's kinda slow. If I had averaged 10 minute miles, I would have been maybe in the top 100. As it was, I finished just about halfway in the middle, at 136 out of 270 men.

Had I been a woman, I would have placed around 250, but then there were around 700 womens running the 5K (the 10 mile is the prestige event). So I would have been about in the top third rather than the top half.

There was a 12 year old kid that was in the top 10 of the 5K racers, so he must have been going blazingly fast.

I think, with some training, I should be able to do a sub 10-minute mile.

As I was racing, this woman remarked to her friend how much easier it was to run when others are running. I have to agree. Normally, I'd stop and walk, as 3 miles is longer than I usually run. However, with everyone running, I felt I could just keep it up one more mile and not walk, and so I was pretty happy that I pushed myself to do that, and mostly because everyone else was running too.

Afterwards, I thought I'd look out for Frank. Having no idea what his time would be like, I waited for nearly 45 minutes. As it turned out, he probably finished minutes after I did (his race started nearly an hour early), and he left nearly right afterwards. So I would have save myself some cold if I had left right away as well.

Even so, despite the cold and win, I thought it was actually relatively fun to compete in a 5K. I don't know that I'd want to go much beyond a 10K, but certainly, 5K is about to my liking. Running for half an hour is about my comfort zone (a 10 K, being twice as long, would mean running an hour).

So this has at least partly inspired me to do better next time.