A quick recap of a race I decided to do last minute. I signed up the Saturday before the race at The Sneaker Store.  The weather didn’t look bad, not very hot, slim chance of rain, so why not?  The race venue had been changed back to the original course years ago which went through Proctor Parks, less than 2 miles from my house.  In addition, Coach John had a 5 mile time trial scheduled for my training that weekend.

Friday sign up was easy. I went early at 3pm right when sign up began.  It was rather expensive for such a short race with little “bling”.  $40.00 to sign up.  Still, I felt I needed this run because I get very anxious and worked up before a race, the fewer I do, the worse the anxiety.

Sunday, race day. Always on Father’s Day.

It’s raining on race day. After 2018 Boston Marathon, I will always say “I’ve run in worse conditions”.  I went out for a mile and half warm up with Zoey. Tried to settle my stomach before finishing off an additional mile for warm up by running down to the starting line at the park.  As for pre run nutrition:  1 home made “Clif” bar and a banana.

Start time was 9 am.  I left the house at 8:15 to jog to the park, about 1 1/4 miles away.  It was raining pretty good so I shielded myself by sitting in the baseball dugout.  When it was time to start, I took my long sleeve shirt off and put it on the shelf at concessions where it would stay dry until I finished the race and jogged home.

The starting line was at the top of the hill that enters the park from Culver Ave.  We ran down that hill and took a right at the back paved walk way back to the entrance of the park off of Albany St. then back around through the finish line.  Another right turn then a left up the hill towards the other Proctor Park. We took a right at the end through the back trail and then made our way to the back of FT Proctor around to the front on Culver back around so we didn’t turn right again until we looped back and through the trail. We took a left into the Masonic Community running about 1.3 miles. We ran towards the children’s day care/school, looped and ran back. Once we exited the community, we turned left onto the trail, down the very steep hill (watch for roots and stones) and back along this trail to TR Proctor and to the finish.

5 miles, 7:57 / mile in 39:55 minutes. Not bad. My goal was to run under 40 minutes but was hoping for a lot better.

Soaked through to the bone and a little chilled, I was able to snag a race shirt from the extras, grabbed my long sleeve and jog home to get the car.   I placed 1st in my age group.

All that anxiety.  Shorter races hurt. I know it’s going to feel uncomfortable and that’s the problem.  I don’t like it to be hard.

Joanne

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