It feels weird blogging about running in the wake of the horrific bombings at the Boston Marathon last week. Never would I have imagined for something like that to happen at the biggest race of the country. My thoughts and prayers goes out to all those affected by this. It was encouraging to see all the outreach and support by the runners immediately after the bombings. There were also a plethora of positive articles I read throughout the week on various and blogs and websites about how this will not get in the way of runners in future races and will not prevent us from doing what we love. I can only echo those sentiments.
A great example of runners coming together in support/honor of Boston, was the local running club in town organizing a 2.62 mile group run open for everyone the day after the tragedy. My friend Adam and I ran with the front of the pack throughout it, and we all wore special runners' bibs and ribbons in honor of Boston while most of the runners wore the blue and yellow colors of Boston. It was a great experience running in a group in that setting that I will never forget. The picture to the upper left is from the local paper in town covering the run where you can see my friend Adam on the second to the left, and you can see a third of my blurry face tucked behind some runners to the right.
Earlier today also marked the second official race I competed in. UND was hosting a 5K run for Autism that looped around the campus. The weather has been gorgeous today, and it was around 28 degrees on a sunny day at race time. Unfortunately, this past month it has still been snowing fairly consistently and for one quarter mile stretch early on in the race, and towards the end again when it looped back there was a horrible stretch of trail that was caked in ice and frozen snow that was nearly impossible to run around. I tumbled into another runner taking a fall, and luckily was able to collapse onto a snow bank to break my fall to the side, and also had several scary slips throughout the race and saw at least a few other runners wipeout too. It was surprisingly dangerous on this stretch of trail, and I am shocked the race coordinators did not have someone attempt to plow or break up the ice prior to the race.
Extraordinarily icy conditions aside, I felt pretty confident going into this race. I recall on the 10K I ran in February I ran about half of it nonstop at a relatively fast race pace before slowing down, so I went in with a strategy of really going full steam ahead for the entire race thinking I can keep the pace up. After that initial icy stretch, I amped it up and was making great headway to the point I was within the top ten for the first half of the race of approximately 125-150 runners. Then, after about three songs into my playlist I could hear myself breathing very hard and I was grasping for air with increasingly deeper and deeper breaths. I started to slow down, and managed not to have many runners pass me until the final mile when I played it very safe on that returning icy stretch.
The running app on my phone said I finished with a time of 27:11, though I think 26:30 is a little more realistic because I started the timer shortly before the race started, and went about a half minute before remembering to turn off the stop watch after I finished while I was desperately looking for a glass of water. I have no idea if official results will be posted online for this small race, but I would guess I finished around 30th and felt pretty good how I did, especially by how winded I was for the last half of the race. I think that is the hardest I have ever started off a run yet.
Falling down and going through those scary icy conditions aside, I had a great time, and there was a great group at the finishing line giving loud applause for everyone who finished that made it all worthwhile. I definitely got that competitive race day spirit in me; I just got to learn to control it and balance out my pace a little more so I am not gassed by the halfway mark again. It is just under a month away until the big half marathon in Fargo I have been training for since Christmas. Here is to hoping the town will not be flooded with our record breaking snowfall this winter, and that there will please be no icy conditions come race time.
4/22/2013 Update - Race results did get posted online, I ended up finishing 23rd out of 74 competitors with a time of 26 minutes and 22 seconds. Not as many people as I thought, but I also finished a little better than I did as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment