Warrior Run 5K

I wanted to race one more 5k before my marathon next weekend. At last week’s race, I was not completely confident that the course was accurately measured, and I know I lost some time when I stopped to mess around with my race number. I’ve been feeling pretty good lately and I wanted to see just what kind of speed I really have.

The Warrior Run, in its second year, is a fundraiser for the suicide prevention program at Children’s Hospital Medical Center (“Surviving the Teens”). The race was created by the friends and family of Jim Miller, who was a runner and active member of the community before his death from suicide in 2008. You can read about Jim Miller here. You can read a newspaper article about last year’s race here.

I picked this race out of the available options for a number of reasons---it was for a good cause, close to home, they said there would be food afterwards, the timing Saturday night would enable me to still get a long run in on Sunday, and I am familiar with the course. It is run almost entirely through pleasant residential streets in the village of Mariemont. And it also helped that when I looked at the results, the times from last year were not that competitive, so I figured I had a chance at another moment of glory. I wanted to finish in the top ten women and win my age group.

Also, I had a fair amount of confidence that the race director for this one would put together an accurately measured course.

All of these things turned out to be true, except this year, the field was a bit more competitive.

Picked up my bib number at The Running Spot on Friday afternoon. The shirt is included. It’s orange, which is okay with me. Cheerful. The volunteer told me they were using chip timing but we had to pick up our chips up at the start.

Red Wine & Gin are Not a Race-Ready Combo
Friday night I made steak for dinner (which seemed to necessitate sharing a bottle of Shiraz). Prior to dinner, it just felt right to celebrate one of the last warm evenings of the season with a gin & tonic on the patio. I should have known better.

I just can’t drink that much anymore, and it is always a bad idea for me to mix gin and red wine in the same evening. I didn’t feel that bad Saturday morning, but by afternoon I was dragging. Had to take a nap. Had to have three cups of coffee. And a cup of tea. Really wasn’t in the mood to race but went over anyway.

Parking was recommended at Mariemont High School, but that is a mile away from the start/finish of the race. I need a mile warm up anyway but I didn’t want to walk that far afterwards. They did have a shuttle bus, but I didn’t want to deal with that. Fortunately, it was no problem finding a spot in the lot behind the Dilly Café/Mariemont Inn, only about a quarter mile from the start.

The race start and finish was on Pleasant St. (remember, I said it was a pleasant neighborhood) next to the Bell Tower Park. There were lots of kids and families gathered in the park, hanging out by the playground. Booths were set up offering the promised food items, including pizza, chili, ice cream, baked goods, and fruit cups. I liked what I saw. I didn’t think I would be very hungry after the race but maybe some ice cream.

After attaching my chip to my left shoe, I stopped at the portapotties. My mouth felt dry, so I grabbed a bottle of water from a cooler and headed out for my warm up. I wondered if I really needed to get any warmer. It was much warmer out than last weekend. I felt crappy but I made myself do a mile anyway. I jogged down the street and saw where the one mile marker was positioned. Good to know that there would be mile markers at this one. I passed by an aid station where the volunteer asked me if the race had started already. No, not for another 20 minutes, I told her.

I did some strides. I still felt yucky. I was thinking that maybe if my first mile was over 9 minutes I would just drop out. I was thinking that if it looked like I was not going to break 25 minutes, I would not cross the finish line. I was thinking maybe it was a stupid idea to be doing this race a week before the Hartford Marathon.

I finished the bottle of water. I made another stop at the portapotties, and took my place behind the start line. We were packed in tight on Pleasant St. I tried to find a spot close to the front and ahead of any obvious walker-types. The walkers are supposed to start after the runners but sometimes they don’t get the message, or maybe they don’t realize that they are walkers until the rest of us start running.

I saw a woman whom I thought might have been my age group competitor, Cyndi K., but I was not completely sure. Otherwise I didn’t see anybody there I knew.

And then we were off, and I discovered that I had not entirely succeeded in getting ahead of the walkers, because I had to elbow a couple of women aside right away. After that it was crowded, but moving at the right pace. We headed out onto Rt. 50 for a few blocks, before turning back into the neighborhood for the remainder of the race. I was passed by one woman who looked like she was in my age group, but I caught up to and overtook another couple of possible rivals before the first half mile.

I felt bad. I did not know if it was because I was running fast, or if it was just because I was still hung over. I remind myself about how I am trying to stop giving in to that desire to quit, in running and in many other parts of life. And dropping out really is not in the spirit of the day.

I hit the first mile marker in 7:47. It was comforting to realize that I felt bad because I was actually running what for me is a fairly fast pace.

Now I knew that I was not going to drop out. I told myself, 16, 17 more minutes, you’ll be done. You can handle that, right?

Picked up a cup of water at the aid station and swished some around my mouth. Walked for just a few paces. Halfway into the race and I was no longer thinking about feeling hung over. I was just racing. Mile two was 8:09. Okay, a bit slower, but maybe there is a slight incline here and also I did lose a few seconds at the aid station.

In 5ks, I always start counting down the minutes until I will be done after I start the last mile. So now I was telling myself, eight or nine more minutes and I would be done. You can do this for eight more minutes, I told myself.

As we approached the three mile mark and the turn for home, I noticed a couple of women that I remembered from the start, who might have been in my age group. I didn’t think I could catch them, but when we turned the corner it seemed like they were slowing down.

I kicked and passed those two women (and a few men) and almost caught one other, crossing the finish line in 24:29 official time. I had the last mile as 7:52 on my watch, and 40 seconds for the last bit.  I was out of breath but I did not throw up. Yay for me.

I was quite pleased with my time, which was about the same as last weekend on a much cooler day. Hangover was gone. I felt fabulous. I love racing!

I walked around for a bit, and then decided to have a little ice cream. And a brownie. Incredible brownie. I went back to the dessert booth to inquire about the caterer who had made the brownies. I was still walking around stuffing my face with brownies and ice cream when Cyndi K. came over and introduced herself to me.

A Little Friendly Competition
She said she thought she had seen me at a few of the trail races, and her name was Cyndi. I had to stop myself from saying her name before she did. I told her I was Monica. We chatted for a bit about how we just do these things for fun, and we really don’t train very hard, and how we just love to get out and run in these different parts of town (that last part is true). Cyndi said that she is really more into triathlons (of course she is). I was surprised that she didn’t know that the Ironman was going on in Kona as we spoke. I told her that I had been watching it streamed live before I left for the race, and the elites were just about halfway through the bike at that point.

“I just love the human interest stories, that’s my favorite part.” said Cyndi.

“Me too,” I said.

Sure we do.

And more like that for a little bit. I was conscious of having chocolate fudge all over my face. I told Cyndi I needed to be heading out, and we said our goodbyes until the next time.

When I tell Tommy this story later, he just has a good laugh about how funny women are! I mean, if Cyndi really doesn’t care that I have beaten her in our last four races, why did she come over to say hello? All out of the blue and at random like that? Tommy asks why we can’t admit that we are competing with each other.

Well, mostly I am competing with myself. But I can’t help but be aware of the others, these people that I see every week and whose names get published along with mine on lists with our respective times next to them. We are racing, after all. We are racing to see how fast we are. But we are also racing to see if we are faster than somebody else.

I went off to look for a napkin. I decided not to stay for the awards, because on the web site they said they were only going one deep in the age groups. I was pretty sure I had beaten Cyndi (note that we did not discuss our finish times or places at all), but I didn’t know who else was there. This particular race director sometimes is a little slow getting the awards going, and I didn’t want to hang around for an hour and not get anything.

Turns out, I was 3 of 13 in the age group, and they did go three deep on the awards. Oh well, I suspect it was not anything I really need to add to my collection. I was 13 of 186 women, and 61 of 237 runners overall. By comparison, last year my time would have easily won the age group and finished in the top ten women. But it was more competitive this year.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable event, and one that I will add to the calendar for the future.