The 5K that wasn't, and why it doesn't matter (Read 1032 times)

This is a long post, about a 5k that wasn’t…read if you’re bored (or need a distraction from all the BQ conversations)…

It’s been a long time – 10 years now – since my 5k PR (18:36) – set back when I was just starting getting serious about running at 24. It was tucked somewhere between a couple of marathons, HMs, and 20ks. Not the most impressive time, clearly, but semi-respectable for a hacker. Anyway, this year has been all about 5ks, and trying to get back under that time. And I have been getting there, 19:15 in June, 18:57 last month. So, was pretty amped for yesterday. Have felt unbelievable this past month, finding a way to squeeze in a few extra miles each week (amazing what a little guilt from reading these boards will do), and feel stronger/faster than I have in a long time.

So, had high expectations for yesterday. Was telling fellow runners openly (find declaring it out loud has some power) that 18:30 was mine. No problem. With the right weather, could even be better.

Showed up Sunday ready to race. Was an A+ fall day in New England. Spectacular, peaking color leaves, full sunshine, 65 degrees…doesn’t get better than that.  Now, for a few weeks I’ve been looking for a course map for this race – none online that I could find, so figured they’d have one there at the reg. Nope. That’s when things started to get interesting. Saw a couple of guys in triathlon tech shirts looking at a printout, so went over to ask them if I could take a look – these were great guys by the way, turned out to be the old college roommates of the marine in whose honor the race is run to raise money for a scholarship in his name. The map was hilarious, like someone just randomly drew squiggly lines all over the place…welcome to my first cross country course. 12^th year of this race, so asked the guys about it. They said, “every year it’s the same…basically a race for the first mile, then we start asking each other which way to go, and make it up as best we can. One year, we’re pretty sure we ran it right, were out in front the whole time, then with 100 yards to go a group of like 40 joggers burst out of the woods randomly in front of us…you’ve never seen a group so impressed with their ‘times’”.  So, needless to say, it’s not the best ‘staffed’ race, there aren’t any volunteers to tell you where to go, no clocks, no chips, etc. The course had some painted arrows (there was a large XC invitation meet Saturday), but that didn’t really help.

I asked the roommates their times – all sub 18 guys – so I figured I would try and stick with them, that they would pull me along, and hopefully keep me from getting lost. So, we lined up at the start…and that’s when it started to hit me…priest gave a invocation, Congressman Murphy spoke, and the honoree’s brother gave a short thank you. And all of a sudden, I didn’t care about 18:30. Was here on top of this hill (and wow this is a hilly course by the way), with a bunch of folks, 90% of whom were there really to support the memory of their friend, fund his scholarship and have fun together. Sounds kind of cheesy, but I’ve done a lot of “Run For fill in the blank” races, and none of them felt like this one, so personal.

Anyway, race was really fun. Stuck with the roommates the whole time, and we led from start to “finish”. Very fast pace, and held it the whole time, which was pretty tough considering the hills (this was Canterbury School XC course in New Milford, CT for anyone who knows it). Best guess based on the first mile was 5:54s. Second mile on the sloping hay fields we got completely lost. One guy, quite impressively, pulled out the map while never breaking pace, in an effort to orient us, and we tried best we could to stick to what we were pretty sure the course was. At about 10 mins, we saw a big group coming down the trail right at us, and knew something was wrong. But kept plowing forward. Came into the final turns, and quite clearly we hadn’t run 5000m. Was still feeling really good, and at this point our lead pack had turned into just me and two of the roommates. Finish was in site, and for about a half a second I thought about a ‘finishing kick’, but then realized how silly that was, considering. Crossed the line right behind my new running partners, took the electrical tape off my watch to check our time – 13:12. Obviously we missed a few turns. Best guess was we covered somewhere around 2 and quarter. Didn’t really care though. Such a great day out, and really the whole reason for being there wasn’t about my time, or my effort. Met some really good people, and the run was fun in a way a lot of races haven’t been for me – it was more about running with these guys than running against them or the clock.

I’ll get 18:30 another day. And I’ll enjoy the memory of yesterday for what it was.

Bravo!  Loved reading this!

Great un-race report!   Glad you were able to go with the flow and just have fun.  Let us know when that 18:30 happens!

Good story / race report.  Uplifting read.

Happend to me as a teenager in a small 10K. I was in the front group and we all got lost. We tried to backtrack and get on course but when we crossed the line posting times in the low 30s we were all rightfully disqualified. I think the person who was eventually declared the winner was very surprised.

Nice report, H2bubbles.  I'm in that King of the Hill picture too. Good luck on your Halloween race!

Well, pretty close today. 18:34.

5:54, 5:56, 6:05. Couldn't hold those last few seconds on the final hill. Still a PR by a couple of seconds and 10 years, so still pretty happy.