May 17: Kilgour 5k
A Love-Hate Relationship
This is the little 5k that raises money for the sports program at Kilgour elementary school. The course is through the neighborhood around the school and Ault Park. It's an evening race and always on the first day of the Hamilton agility trial, so I end up rushing to get home, then I jog up to the race to get my shirt, jog back home, and then finally back to the school for an extended warmup. This year got to chat with my old friend/former co-worker David Jones and we discussed our love-hate relationship with this race. It's a tough course and often hot so we generally run worse than we expect to.
This year I thought it would be great if I could break 28 minutes and that is just about what happened. Splits were 8:44,8:41, 9:25 (not sure what happened) and 53 seconds for the last .1 for a final time of 27:43, which was enough to win my age group but as usual I did not stick around for the awards. They did have some Yagoot frozen yogurt after the race and that was really nice. I was 80 of 421 runners and 16th women overall.
May 19: Mt. Airy Trail Race
Should Have Taken the Offer
It rained a lot in the days leading up to this race so the trails were a mess. In previous years I have run relatively faster on this course because the hills are not as steep and it's less technical. Before the race began Bob Roncker warned us about the rough trail conditions and offered free entry to another race to anyone who wished to withdraw.
I should have taken him up on the offer. I started off okay in the grass but as soon as we hit the trails it was deep, solid mud the entire way. Mud scares me lots so I had to slow way down. I actually ended up getting passed by a woman who generally finishes quite far behind me, and I ran most of the second half of the race behind her. it was nice to have somebody to chat with but disheartening to finish 25 minutes slower than last year. I did manage to pull ahead of her over the last half mile or so. Final time was 1:20:58, and place was 30 of 46 women, 87 of 112 runners and 66 of 112 age-graded. I had to ice my knee and my butt before getting in the car to drive home.
June 16: French Park Creek Crossings Trail Race
I Get Out-Kicked
My knee has continued to bother me ever since the stupid Mt. Airy outing in the mud. But this is my favorite trail race and I didn't want to miss it. I thought the trails would be in decent shape because the weather had been drier recently.
I chatted some with Brenda W. pre-race. I was ahead of her until about halfway, where there was some mud and I got scared and had to ease up. After that I probably was babying myself a little but better safe than sorry. I was surprised to see Brenda not far ahead of me coming up the steps near the end. I caught up to her and said "Now we're racing." This tunred out to be a fatal error. At first, she gave up and told me to go on. Then somehow she found her second wind, and she kicked past me to beat me by two seconds! The photographer got some great pictures of what I look like when I am getting outkicked.
Final time was 41:33 (last year was more like 35 minutes), 46 of 73 women, 153 of 189 runners, and 101 of 189 age-graded.
June 22: Heel to Heal 5k
Third Place Woman Wins a Real Prize
Signed up for this first time event to get a time to base my speed training paces off as I got ready to begin speed work the following week. This little race was a benefit for Healing Touch. Healing Touch is an energy healing technique. I attended a seminar on healing touch with Libby years ago. I think, bottom line, is that it is a bunch of hooey, but the practitioners are nice people and sincere.
I did not expect the race to be very big, but they did have a somewhat professional web site that made it sound like there could be a good sized crowd. I picked up my technical shirt and race number the day before at Mojo Running in West Chester. There's a running shoe store in West Chester? Who knew? Anyway, it didn't look like they had very many packets to give out .
The race course was on a paved path around the lake in Voice of America Park. We did a lap of the small parking lot, then two laps of the trail. it was a hot, sunny morning and there was no shade on the course. But the field was a tiny one. I guessed about 50 people (there were actually a total of 57, including the walkers). This was one of the smallest races I've ever done.
I didn't recognize anybody there. They told us that we should line up in front only if we thought we would break 20 minutes. In fact, nobody in the race broke 20 minutes! Not even they guy who won! I lined up next to a woman who looked to be about my age, and tried to suss out if she was competition for me. Figured out that she was not. The race began, and as we left the parking lot I counted just 10 people ahead of me, including a couple of women.
I ran the first mile in 8:01, which was proabably too fast. I did manage to pass one of the women. We got passed by an old man, though, so there were still ten ahead of me. Mile two was an 8:49. There was a water stop about half way around the lake so we hit it twice. I didn't drink the water but I swished it around and dumped it on my arms.
In the last half mile or so I passed a guy, but he passed me back right before the finish. Whatever. But I ran most of the way by myself.
There were no mile markers so I was glad to have my GPS watch. Second and third miles were each 8:49. The course was fairly flat with a couple of small hills and some twisty turns.
Post race they had bananas, trail mix, granola bars and water (not cold, it was sitting out in the sun).
I wasn't going to stay around for the awards unless I thought it was something good like a coffee mug, but I decided to stay anyway out of respect for the people putting on the race. I felt bad that it was not better attended, because overall it was a nice little race. In the meantime, I had a healing touch session. This took about 15 minutes and required me to lay flat on my back on a massage table. This turned out to be a mistake because I didn't get a chance to stretch. I almost fainted when I finally sat up. The Healing Touch did not do anything for me. What i really needed was a healing bag of ice. There was an EMT van there but they did not have any ice. If you had a heart attack they could help you, but if you sprained an ankle you were SOL.
It took them awhile to figure out the awards since they were doing it all by hand. I actually heard a couple people complain about not having chip time! Seriously. They could have handed out popsicle sticks. They could have had a chimpanzee handing out popsicle sticks and another chimpanzee recording our times.
Anyway, they got it done, and turned out I was 1 of 2 in my age group (no surprise there) but also third woman overall. This last was a bit of a surprise because I thought there was another woman ahead of me. Even better my prize was a $20 gift card to Roncker's. This was actually better than the second place prize which was a sportsbag and I definitely don't need any more of those. So I was glad I stuck around.
Final time was 26:35. Three of 14 women 11 of 28 runners overall. Final funny thing, a few days later in the mail they sent me the prize for 3rd place MALE and another $20 gift card, which I am returning to them. Not sure why the cards were for Roncker's instead of Mojo, another mystery.
June 29: Hyde Park Blast
Another Love Hate Relationship
I have only missed this race one time, but most years I have spent a lot of verbiage dissing it. I think I'm finally through with that because it has evolved into a nice race. And they are finally starting to contribute what I consider to be a respectable amount to charity, considering what they must bring in.
i expected to be slower than last year because I am so much fatter and have been slower lately. I have come to terms with that. It is what it is. The rest of this training cycle, I will just try to do my best and not have overly ambitious goals.
The weather was nicer than usual this year (just a little cooler) and they moved the start up to 7:30 am which helps a lot. I jogged to the Square from home as my warmup. At the last minute before leaving the house I decided to try wearing my iFitness belt so I could carry my phone to take some pics and log in a post-race beer to Untappd (sadly, that was the real reason).
The ifitness belt felt okay even though you it is designed so the phone rides on your belly rather than your backside, although I did have some bad cramps later when I got home and I wonder if it was from the belt.
Jogged down to the start, snapped a couple pics, tried to line up in an appropriate spot not too far back. Almost 2300 runners and I only saw three people the whole way that I recognized (Jean Schmidt and Jennifer Black at the start, Judy Harmony as I passed her at mile 3).
Splits were fairly consistent: 8:32, 9:05 (uphill), 8:31, and 8:29, for a final time of 34:37. This was better than I expected but I guess in line with the 5k from last week. Actually just 29 seconds slower than last year, so that's not too horrible. The race results site only has times listed by actual age (not group) but I think I was 11th in my age group, 280 of 1322 women, and 721 of 2292 runners.
Post race I did have a few sips of a Coors Light so I could make strides toward my All-American Badge on Untappd. It was very cold and actually didn't taste bad, but it didn't seem like a good idea to finish it.
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