Today I ran the Jimmy D 5k in New Brunswick, NJ.  It’s an annual race that honors a firefighter that was killed and raises money for burn victims.  I’ve run it the past two years and really like it – great organization, great cause, meaningful course (it runs right by the fire station where Jimmy worked).

I was hoping for a PR, since my running has gone pretty well this summer, and I spent most of the summer out of state in a hilly area, so I thought that might result in some extra zing in my race times upon returning to central New Jersey.  I also had 3 miles at tempo pace a couple of weeks ago that felt super good.  Scarily good.  However, working against me was the fact that a few days after that tempo run I came down with a case of shingles.  I had 6 days of zero running due to the pain and a light week after that.  I feel fine now, but still.  And even more importantly, it was stupidly humid today; 75 with a dewpoint of 72 at race time. *facepalm*

Still, mentally-speaking, I felt fantastic this morning.  On the way to the race I heard the song “I Feel Lucky” by Mary Chapin Carpenter.  I haven’t heard that song in like 20 years, but I thought maybe it was a good sign, haha.  When I got there, I did a warmup jog of almost 2 miles, which is more than I usually do.  That was probably a mistake on this day, since I was absolutely drenched in sweat as I lined up for the start.  Crap.  Still, I was clinging to the idea that a slight PR might be possible, so as we took off I concentrated on finding the right pace: 7:25 or slightly slower, but NO faster.  I locked into what felt like perfect 5k pace and focused on deep, even breathing.  As I approached the first mile clock, it was reading 7:30.  Hey, great!  Then the oddest thing happened; the guy working the clock flipped it off for several seconds, and when it came back on it said 7:50. ??  I checked my watch and indeed the new time was right; I had 7:48 for my first mile.  Oh well, there goes the PR attempt.  Though I felt good, I was definitely getting sweatier, and I knew there was no way I could make up the missed time.

Miles 2 and 3 just became a fight to finish.  My mile 2 time wasn’t bad at 7:53, but the effort needed to maintain pace was definitely rising, and in the third mile the humidity was really catching up to me and I felt so exhausted.  My breathing was much faster, I was getting side stitches, and all my muscles hurt.  I had that voice in my head saying “walk, just walk, it’ll hurt less and you aren’t PRing anyway”.  I caved and decided that this would be ok, and then like one millisecond later I thought “NO! You are not walking!!”.  And I didn’t.  I did slide all the way out to 8:14 for mile 3 though; ugh.  Managed a small kick as we ran around the middle school track for the finish, and my watch said 24:44; more than a minute slower than my PR.   The official results have it as 24:55.

I downed a bottle of water and, seeing that my desire to do a couple of cooldown miles was waning by the minute, quickly headed out to get those out of the way.  They were sloooooow and felt pretty awful.  A cool thing happened during them though.  I was running on the sidewalk, opposite direction from the folks who were still finishing the race.  I passed a cop who was volunteering and he was in a jolly mood and yelled out, "Doing the course again?" I just laughed and said "yeah, a couple of cooldown miles", and he said "you've got the heart of a champion".  I laughed again and thanked him for volunteering.  Cool guy.

After returning to the finish area, I chugged a second bottle of water.  I checked the results and saw I had gotten 3^rd in my age group.  ?!  This race is typically draws a lot of fast folks, and my time would not have been competitive at all in previous years.  But hey, you race the people that show up.  And I am glad I didn’t walk, because 4^th place in my age group was only 6 seconds behind me!!  I will remember that for the next time I want to walk in a race.  So yeah, I got a medal!

I’m looking forward to a cooler and drier next 5k race in October.  Sheesh.

Congrats!  Great job considering all the issues.

The cool down run is no sure thing for me, sometimes I do it and sometimes I do not.  One thing is for sure though, the sooner I do it post-race the better!

Do not be too hard on yourself for the long warmup, it sounds like a mucky day that a lot of us are having but age group bling can help with that....though sometimes not.  lol

What is next for you?

Congrats!  AG bling because of refusing to give in to temptation, nice.