Once again, it’s been a few days since my last post; I guess that I’m struggling to adjust to being back in school. In any case, I raced my first 5K since June yesterday morning: the Paper Mill 5K at Historic Rittenhousetown, here in Philly. I ran this race last year, too. The course takes you through a section of Fairmount Park that runs along Wissahickon Creek; it’s predominately packed dirt, with some mildly uneven, rocky terrain, and a few moderately challenging hills. Not an easy course. I was looking to PR, and hoping to break 20 minutes, but I knew going into it that the conditions weren’t in my favor, so I tried to set my sights on placing rather than on hitting any specific time goal. The race started at 10:00 AM, so I woke up at 7, ate my normal breakfast (peanut butter & banana in an Ezekial wrap), and drove down to the course around 9 to pick up my bib and t-shirt. I ran the course to warm up and felt pretty good: no hamstring pain, no real stiffness or soreness anywhere. I came across a huge tree down in the middle of the trail that I had to slow down to jump over, and I wasn’t too happy about this, but, again, I had already decided that placing was more important than setting a PR, so I tried to take it in stride. I finished my warm-up with about 10 minutes till gun time, so I did a few quick strides and made my way to the starting line. A guy standing near me asked me how fast I intended to run, and I told him that I’d probably be somewhere in the 20:xx range. He then told me that I stood a good chance of taking top female, and helped to clear a spot for me up front, right on the line. I’m still a pretty inexperienced racer so I’m never quite sure where to start. I knew that I should be near the front, but I had no idea if there were women planning to run in the 17s, 18s, 19s—so I appreciated some guidance from someone who knew the field better than I did.
When the gun went off, I took off too fast, as always. It’s still very hard for me not to get swept up in all the excitement. However, within 400m or so, I settled into a steady pace, and reached the turn-around point in 10:10. I knew then that sub-20 was something of a dream, as I’ve never run negative splits in a race, but I dug in and tried to pick it up a bit anyway, as I was intent on maintaining my position: there were 4 or 5 people in front of me, all men, and only 1 woman in sight, roughly 200m behind me. I needed to hold her off. After leading for half the race, succumbing to second place would be shattering. I set my sights on the man directly ahead of me and focused on staying right behind him. He didn’t seem to be wavering at all as we neared the 2.5 mile mark, so I figured that if I could keep my position relative to him, I’d know that I wasn’t flagging, that I was still going strong and that I needn’t worry about losing my lead. The 3 mile mark approached and I began to feel a little queasy. There was a big hill leading into the finish and by this stage my legs were just shot; still, with the end so close, I summoned the energy for a passable kick, and crossed the line in 20:45, taking first female by several seconds. I took a minute to drink some water and steady my breathing, then turned around to cool down by running the course a third time. It felt great to win. I’ve taken my age group a couple of times but I’d never before been the first woman overall. Unfortunately, I started to get a bit depressed later in the day, wondering why I wasn’t faster after all my hard summer training. It’s difficult not to worry that I’ve been doing something wrong. Luckily, I’ve been able to put those thoughts out of mind, for the most part, and to enjoy my victory—which, by the way, came with a $100 prize!
Here are a couple of pictures:
Just after the starting gun. I'm in purple, number 711. The guy on the far right without a shirt took first overall. The woman behind me and to the right wearing a sports bra took second female.
Coming into the finish. Blurry!
Collecting my prize money, looking awkward.
I’m planning to head out for an easy 10 in a few minutes; then it’s time to start focusing on next week’s Philly Distance Run. I can’t believe that it’s so soon!
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