Race for the Pinks 5k

I signed up for this 5k mostly because it was a few blocks from my house. Can't beat the transportation! The 5k was starting at 8:00 and the fun run at 9:00. I drove to the race (which felt really, really lazy) because Harry wanted to do the fun run and I was a little worried about getting him there in time.

Anyway, I put on my running skirt I bought for last year's Princess Half. I'm really not the running skirt type, but I thought it would be appropriate to look girly for the Race for the Pinks. Unfortunately, I'd never worn it before and it was both short and big. The little bit of coverage provided felt like it might slip down- that was distracting!

I talked to my friend Michelle before the race who just wanted to finish. I wanted to have a new time to plug into the race calculators so I lined up behind the always present half-naked, trash-talking high school boys. My friends Cheryl and Mary were next to me. They were doing this race the weekend before the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. Hard core. Cheryl tapped me on the arm and asked how old I was. I told her I'm 39. Her response was something like "oh, I thought you were older!" And now I know I'm a runner, because instead of thinking that I can't get to Botox soon enough, I recognized that she just wanted to know if she had to worry about me in the Master's division. Cracked me up.

The race started. First couple of blocks is downhill. Cheryl and Mary are in front of me. I find this unacceptable since I'm sure they're holding back a bit for their full next weekend. So I trot on past them. And found myself next to Allison. She's a triathlete type and she's running insanely fast. I keep up with her the first mile and a half- we're pushing 7:20s. The course is hitting all the hills. Using Cheryl's logic, it suddenly hit me that Allison is younger than me. Bye Bye.

The rest of the race was uneventful. I finished in something like 23:5x. I was hoping to be faster, but I was in the same order with the locals so I guess the hills took a toll on everyone (except Allison- note to self: don't try to keep up next time!)

Time to go get Harry. Pity I can't get out of the parking lot without going across the race course. Hmmmm.... I grabbed Harry's bib and just started trotting back to my house. I loaded Harry up in the stroller, knowing that he wouldn't want to go one step farther than a mile. I'm sure we were quite the sight- I'm hot, sweaty, wheezing, limping, pushing the ginormous Harry. (At least my skirt stopped threatening to fall off once I got hot). The race monitors laughed at me. Harry and I made it to the parking lot and put the stroller in the car.



We lined up. I was bragging about how Harry maintains a nice steady pace. Yeah, he immediately took off... and in half a block was walking. I remember him trying to walk on a curb and falling (good to get the prerequisite race fall out of the way early). He'd run, he'd kick pinecones, he'd walk, he'd wave at other people, he'd break into a limp and start rubbing his leg- very busy mile! It was definitely fun, but it took a long time to finish (I think 14:xx minutes). Harry did sprint in the last block or so. To his utter dismay, they'd run out of medals. I knew I'd won my age group, so I told him to stick around and that I'd give him mine. Unfortunately, I forgot that instead of medals, I'd be getting a little towel. Harry was less than impressed. Such is life in the back of the pack.



The teenage age boys were from a cross country team in Douglas- they finished 1st through 5th. Cheryl won the Master's division, but she was behind me. So did I really beat her or did she just play it safe and ignore me since I wasn't in her division?? My vet was at the finish line holding a random puppy. Turns out he'd seen it at his office the day before- it was chasing people on the course so he grabbed it and was going to walk it home. Small town!

I did decide I might have a new policy regarding 5ks. I couldn't run this 5k with my newbie friend because I needed enough time to pick up Harry, but I think in the future I may try to help pace some of my friends. I had an okay race time, but I was really crippled for a full week afterwards. I had to skip a lot of training including two weekend long runs- not smart. I'm not really sure why I can't seem to get rid of lingering injuries (apparently if you have some sort of PF in your left foot, you can overcompensate with your right and then end up with both legs crippled...) but stupid me shouldn't have been so competitive.