Jim Schoemehl 5K Run/Walk Race report (Read 602 times)

Ran my first race ever (a 5K) today so here's the skinny... The Jim Schoemehl 5K Run/Walk is a charity run held by the local high school to raise money for ALS research. It's been going on for a while and my kids have run in it before but this year I thought it would be a great introduction to racing so I got up this morning and instead of my usual 5.55 miles I went down and signed up. The race was well organized across the parking lot, with various registration, donation, bagels/water tables around for pre and post race activities. I had gotten there right at 7am so I had plenty of time to jog a bit to warm up, stretch, and warm up a bit more. As a complete noob to racing my plan was to just follow the crowd around and do what they did (this worked out pretty well). I saw lots of familiar faces running the show (the kids who hang out with my daughter) and they were all friendly and encouraging. I know it's going to be about 65F and 65% relative humidity for the race. Just before 8am I follow the crowd up to the starting line and fall in somewhere around the middle of the pack. As I stand around seeing everyone talking and joking around, I realize how social this kind of thing is and feel a quiet rush of low-grade euphoria flowing around me -- it's quite cool to be a part of this common thread with so much diversity: the moms and dads pushing strollers, high school track stars, head-to-toe Nike cladded master class bad-asses, and regular old Joe's like me. Onnnnnnnnnnk! WTF was that? Oh I see, we're moving now. Better start my watch... Oh wait, I'm not to the start line yet, should I wait? OK ... NOW! Holy crap we're moving slow and it's crowded. I suppose I'll wait til things thin out a bit before I speed up (I remember I'm not supposed to go out fast and then crash later, so the crowd is probably a good thing). About a half mile later I check my watch for my HR and time to see how I'm doing. 168. Too high? nah. I'm going way to slow (this was exactly opposite of reality). How's my pace: 0:00 :^< omfg.="" double="" bounce="" on="" the="" first="" push="" (start="" -="" /> pause) so I have no way to know my pace. Screw it, I'll just go by breathing (say, I *am* breathing a little hard right now). I slow down a bit. Things are less demanding after I decide to ignore my equipment, although I do wish my mp3 player hadn't broken two days ago since I could really have used my cadence tunes. I relax a bit more and just run. I go faster downhill and slower uphill. I pass a few people, some permanently, and try to keep up with skinny lady bib #340. She is very steady and just before mile two I pass her on a downhill. On the following half mile slight uphill incline she kicks my ass, passing me permanently. I know it's permanent when she goes by and swear to myself to drop another 10 pounds, so help me god. I'm fading in the last mile, finally realize I *did* go out to fast, but WTH, live and learn and I just tough it out. I want to stop and walk, but I don't, even though some people around me are stopping to wallk a bit in the last mile. There's the volunteers, cheering us on for the last half mile and I dog it in across the finish, remembering to smile and ignore my watch. I see on the clock that I actually met my goal time pretty well (28:40 vs. 29:00). I make a mental note to hunt down the guy pushing the stroller who passed me in the last 50 yards. I stick around to cheer in everyone else. Great fun and I feel good. I'll certainly do this again.

Mark, Congrats on your first race!!! Nice report too!

ZZ, There's a combo 10K/5K on Memorial Day I'm considering and a 5K in the third week of June I'll probably do (because it's slightly downhill ) I'm pretty pleased with my time since it's very close to what I was predicting based on my training runs and I've made quite reasonable progress for someone who just started this year. I know I have room for lots of improvement and a vast amount to learn about racing but the thing that I wasn't expecting was how social the whole thing was from start to finish. I wonder if one reason we like to race is to get together with everyone else, who, for what ever reason, put in all those solo miles just like we do. Kind of like shared joy and pain. I know I was seeing a bit of both heaven *and* hell that race .

You can't get that from a Garmin!

Shhh. My virtual training partner might be listening. He is already having self esteem problems because I beat him so often.