Shane woke both Ted and I up at 5:20 am.  This would normally not be a problem but we got home late after having such great time at the wedding.  Natured called but we think mostly, Shane wanted to play.  Ted was up to tend to beasty boy and I got up to dilly-dally & blog before taking Shane for a 2 mile warm up before my race.

6 am:  Banana with 1 TBS peanut butter.  My stomach was a little over active this morning.  I’m sure that was due to “wedding food” which was not my usual pre-run meal.  That made me a little nervous. 

7 am:  Changed clothes from taking Shane for a 2.13 mile jog and got my gear together.  I wore my FAST TWITCH Sauconys for this short race.

saucony

7:20 am:  I left the house for the race.  At about 7:40, the rain came bulleting down.  I couldn’t believe it!  It was suppose to be hot and humid and sunny until later this afternoon!  What the heck?!  Fingers crossed it would stop before the race started at 8:30.

8:05 am: I was back in the jeep with my race packet wishing I had brought my light rain jacket. 

NATE1

It was cold. It was raining hard.

8:16 am:  I locked up the jeep and jogged just under a mile to the starting line.

Along the way, actually, not one minute after leaving my jeep, my foot landed in a puddle and I was destined to run with soaking wet feet.  Another thorn in my side.  

By this time, my stomach had settled and I was feeling a bit better about running.  No emergency stops which would be quite embarrassing especially during a 5K.

NATE2

It was a small race. I forgot that there wouldn’t be chip timing. 

It was cold standing at the starting line. But I had a nice chit-chat with other runners.  Unfortunately, we were chit chatting when they introduced the celebrity boxers who would run along with us.  Oh well…. not like I would have recognized any of them any way.

There was a loud boom of thunder.  The director said, if there was a lightening strike they would delay the race a few minutes.  That didn’t happen.  Good thing. It was COLD!

NATE4

8:40 am: The race began.  The first part of the race was a slight incline and over the NY State thruway

NATE3

What IS that wire for?  So we don’t jump off?!

I had forgotten about my wet feet, my over active digestive system, and the cold.   Now I was trying to run fast.  But as hard as I tried to start fast and keep pace, I couldn’t.  My thought while running was that I am a slow starter and faster finisher.  This made me feel better since now I could delay the effort to the end.   What EXCUSES do you allow yourself when running? 

I saw the 1K sign.  I thought “WOW! That came up fast. Maybe I’m going faster than I think”…. refusing to look at Garmin. 

Then the 2K sign came up.  “This is really going well”  I thought.  Then it dawned on me…. I wasn’t thinking KILOMETERS, I was thinking MILES!  That WASN’T so good.

There was a horrendous smell of garbage.  That’s the worst when you’re running because you really don’t want to take deep breaths of that stuff. 

Got past the garbage then a delicious aroma of some kind of cooking was finding its way up my nose.  That’s more like it.  I realized that I was kind of hungry. 

I could see people turning up ahead toward the finish.  Then I heard the announcer as people crossed the finish.  They said my name, I thought I was going over the line alone. All of a sudden two guys RIPPED past me… AND….WHERE DID THEY COME FROM!?????!

There was no digital clock at the finish.  Someone grabbed the tag from my number going through the shoot.  I forgot to stop my Garmin.

I’m not sure of my finish time.  The pace on the Garmin was off since I was standing around and forgot to stop it.  I DO know it wasn’t may fastest.  There was no way I was sticking around for the awards ceremony which was outside in the pouring rain.  I was dripping wet, cold and just wanted to EAT. 

The result:  I beat myself up for not having a better run on the ride home.  But then I did some self pep talk because I really didn’t know my pace or my time.  Wait until tomorrow.  Besides,  I’m better in longer races or …. at least I’ll tell myself that today.  UPDATE:  Results in  = 24.10  1st in age group. 80th out of a field of 329.

Joanne

Print Friendly, PDF & Email