Chicked by my wife!
Yay I finally get to do a race report ... even if I get an F, proving I have not yet absorbed any of the lessons from this blog into my dense yet shiny skull.
My wife is a chamber of commerce member, so we signed up to run in their annual 5K. A rinky-dink race, but they had timing chips, so cool! Despite all my foot problems of late and lack of training, I was looking forward to logging a good time and getting a new PR. It was so long since I ran a 5K, and my old time was 29 or 30 minutes... and I was in such bad shape back then ... that I was sure I would get a big PR. Well... let's get going with the long list of mistakes I made.
The race wasn't until 6:00 in the evening, but the day didn't start off well.
I started off the day with little sleep, as junior had us up several times during the night. I'm used to this though, so didn't think it would affect me. I ate different stuff for breakfast, which turned out to be a bad idea. I had stomach uh... "issues" all day long that became uncomfortable pains during the race. I can't believe I was that stupid, but I almost never get affected that much by food. Today was one of those days.
I was stressed out all day because of work and a late-in-the-day deadline I had to make. This may have made the food problems worse too? I was shackled to my computer right up until the minute we left to go to the race. Not a good frame of mind to be in, and I definitely wasn't relaxed. Wife and I were LATE to the race -- futzing with babysitter stuff at first, then traffic held us up. We planned to run with a friend. She offered to pick up our chips and numbers for us since she got there first. Big mistake!
We got to the race and couldn't find our friend. She had picked up our race packets and vanished...
The first two waves went off. No sign of her. We had the PA people announcing her name... where was she?
All the waves had gone by the time I found her (she was wandering around a parking lot looking for us ... & was nowhere near the start line ... what was she thinking?!! I have no idea ... but nothing could be done about it.) I wrangled her to the start line -- nobody was there but us and the race volunteers and timers. We all quickly tied on our chips and took off -- totally stressed out, no warmup, no nothing. I turned on my Garmin ... no satellites aquiring ... naturally! I left the gate irked and annoyed and going totally too fast -- I probably ran a 5 minute mile (which is good for "fast" runners, suicide for dorks like me), as the race's start/finish was on top of a hill and it was down, down, down .... into a sea of people -- the walker wave!
Had to pass the morass of walkers/slow runners for the whole first mile and into the 2nd. The majority of the race was on a paved bike path / sidewalk (stink!) so passing was exhausting and annoying. Our own fault though. It was hot and humid ... in the mid 80's and the trail wound around some ball fields that apparently get watered a lot, so the humidity was just uncalled for. I did not need it, that's for sure. I was wearing a hat which I usually don't take off until I've run a couple of miles when it is hot out ... I took the hat off at the 1-mile point, I was boiling over like a pot o'lobsters.
My lungs were screaming somewhere in mile 2, and I knew I was going too fast, but it was impossible to tell just how fast, because everyone at first was slow or standing still, by comparison. I eventually stalled out in mid-pack somewhere after passing half the field ... I was toast. My wife then promptly passed me (she smartly stayed back at the beginning, watching me flame out with my sprint, thinking "what the heck is he doing"?). I never caught up to her! My Garmin woke up nearing mile 3, and even though I felt totally dead it said I was clinging to a pace in the 9-minute range, drifting toward 10 on the uphills. I wasn't about to argue... I was just trying to keep the legs moving while I caught my breath, which seemed uncatchable for the moment.
I started passing people again during mile 3... mostly senior citizens and 9-year-olds ... I finally relaxed and remembered to focus on my form (totally forgotten until then) and the "path" opened up enough to where I could start taking good tangents on the curves. Before that I was at the mercy of the crowd.
I had absolutely nothing left at the finish. We had to run back up the same hill that made me go too fast down at the start. Had to push it up the hill or that lady pushing the jogging stroller loaded with 30-lb twins was gonna catch me ... I made it across the finish and just kept going straight to the porta-potty!
My wife got 5th in her age group,12th in overall women with 24:54! She is faster than me, and actually knows how to race. Plus, she thrives in the heat, which is bizarre. Her marathon PR was in Las Vegas. She chicks me but good, every time!
As for me, I was smack dab in the middle of everything. Almost exact middle of overall males, as well as my age group, as it turns out. Boo! However my age group (30-39) produced the overall winner! (17 minutes). So there is hope for me.
I'm not going to cry about my "official time" or anything, because the whole race was just a disaster. But, my wife's Garmin *did* work, and it clocked her time at least two minutes (?!) faster than the chip time recorded. I wonder if the very late start threw off the chip somehow? It doesn't matter.
Note to self: Be on time for the next race. Don't let anyone pick up your race packet for you. Don't go out too fast! Listen and learn from wife.
| 