Posts tagged 5k

Last Saturday I completed a 5k in my hometown with several friends from high school. Michael was there, and though we started the race together, I’m still no where near finishing with him. Maybe by next year though!

The course was challenging - so far I’ve only been training in flat space, with very gentle changes in elevation that I would not go so far as to call a “hill”. Well, the Woodstock 5k had HILLS. Several of them, in fact, and also led us to a steady uphill finish. Not really an “OMG, that’s a hill!” climb, but enough to be annoying at the end of a race. Not only that, but when you start to approach the start line from the back, there’s a big banner that proudly proclaims “KEEP GOING…1/10 MILE”. By that point, I just wanted to be done, because it felt like it was about 1000 degrees, and I was SURE that I was going to have a craptastic finish time and not meet any of my goals. Said goals were:

• Finish in under an hour
• Don’t be last in my division

At this point, I’d like to point out that the division thing was pretty important to me. At my last 5k I finished last in my age group and I didn’t want to do that again. Not really understanding what I was doing, I signed up for the “Athena” division, which is for women over 150 pounds (which I am WELL over at this point.) So, Friday night as I shared my goals with my dad, I said “I just don’t want to be the last fat girl to cross the finish line”. (No offense to anyone else who has ever competed in the Athena division, I just know that right now, personally, I’m a fat girl out there trying to run.)

So I’m running walking across the “keep going” line, and I’m approached by 2 high school football players who are cheering folks on. The whole football team, cheerleading squad, and band from the high school that served as our start and finish were out along the last 1/2 mile of the course cheering people on, and they did a great job! Well, these 2 football players are cheering, and telling me I can do it, etc, and I just looked at them and said “I don’t know… I’m almost out of energy”. Well, they wouldn’t hear it. They finished the race with me. When I got close enough to see the little timer at the finish line, I said “Y’all won’t believe this, but I’m about to set a personal record for 5k time”. They pushed me to a strong finish. At one point I thought I was going to stumble and fall, and they said “No way - we’re not gonna let you fall - we’re helping you do this”. They were amazing. Unbeknownst to me, a friend on the sideline snapped a photo of me & my helpers.

So, overall, I was pretty pleased with Saturday. It was actually fun. And, bless my dad’s heart… while we were waiting to see results posted, he said “I can tell you for a fact you were not the last “big girl” to finish”. (That’s him, cheering over my right shoulder!)

• Finished in 52:18 (again, not a “great” time, but my PR,  5mins faster on a tougher course than my last 5k!)
• PR for my first mile (15:22)
• NOT LAST! There were 2 people slower than me in my division, and 30 slower people overall :) I know other people’s times shouldn’t matter but I’m sort of at the point that simply “finishing” is not enough for me.
• I didn’t puke! Although I felt like I might as I crossed the finish. I’ve heard people say that if you don’t feel like throwing up at the finish line, you didn’t run hard enough. So I count that feeling as a win.