I've been kinda training in a vacuum for awhile, it seems. Getting in my miles, following the plan, and loving all the support and feedback from my friends (hugs for all) but there was still the little niggling doubt in my head as to whether I could run a race or would just crumble under the pressure-- whether I could apply the training to anything but more training. So, I took the plunge and entered a race, and yesterday I even ran it. (Believe me, I was always well aware that there was no real penalty for just not showing up. LOL.) And you know what? I liked it! Hey, Tracy!
It's still a little surreal in my head, not because there was anything special about how the run went, but because I'm not even sure I know who that person was who showed up on that racecourse. Not me, I'm sure. Some other crazy bubbly chick who stole my clothes... and my bib... and my hair. This is her story, not mine, despite use of the first person narration.
It started out kinda rough. I'm not gonna lie. A week ago hubby said he probably wasn't going to go to the race with me. The night before, he decided that he was, so suddenly I was on his schedule of how things should be. I mean, I don't mind, usually, but him saying I should be asleep is not gonna make me magically fall asleep, and since I work nights, sometimes the sleep just does not come. But anyway, I tried the whole oatmeal thing for breakfast, but only choked down half a bowl and a banana--half the oatmeal, that is. I don't make a habit of eating bowls. I had my coffee with protein powder (chocolate, yum) mixed up some Gatorade in my water bottle, listened to hubby's, no doubt well intended but grating, speech on how I shouldn't expect too much, blah, blah, and then we headed out.
I made a point to pee right before we left, and I still needed the porta potties as soon as we got there.
The race was the Run Thru The Vines 5k/10k at the Mesina Hof Winery and Resort, and it wasn't that hard to find, but a few more signs might've helped. We thought we got there a little on the late side, because the parking lot was full and we were parking on the grass, but by the time the race started, people were parked practically up to the line. Because they'd changed the liability waiver since the online signup, we all had to go through the registration line. They handed out the waivers in the line, but no pens, and I got to listen to the older gentleman behind me talk about how these student run events never got any better, not exactly a great plug for the Texas A&M Roadrunner's club, but I had nothing to compare it to. I think it went off all right, though. Made it through the line in about 5 minutes.
I think it was probably about the time that I strapped on my timing chip and pinned on my bib (number 95 and my hands were shaking SO much!) that this new chick came and possessed me. I was... giddy, excited, couldn't wait to get started. My cheeks hurt from smiling, I kid you not, and I could tell hubby about every pair of shoes that went by. Made my mouth dry. LOL. Those are Asics--they hurt my knees. Those are Vibrams-- I'd like to graduate to those someday, but I'm afraid how they'd hold up on road base and pea gravel and not sure I could stand having stuff between my toes-- look, another person with the UnderArmours (There were only two of us sporting the UnderArmours. I felt special.)
I could pick out the eventual winners of the race with no problem. There's just a different look and build, I guess, neither of which I will ever possess, LOL. I picked out three I thought would be the fastest, but I didn't know which race they were in, so I just stuck that in my head for later reference.
Somewhere between registering and waiting for the race start, I got the worst case of cotton mouth ever and had to race back to the car for my half-empty bottle of Gatorade. When I got back, they were saying five minutes to start. I didn't know if there were separate starts for the 5k and 10k, so it was frustrating that the sound system was total crap, but it seemed like everyone was heading toward the line at the same time, so I just kissed hubby and followed suit.
I'd spent the afternoon prior compiling a playlist for the race (and shampooing my carpet and burning audiobooks to CD, very productive day, lol) and as we approached the line, I realized I'd better start it playing, since there'd be no way to access it without unzipping my armband, and I didn't wanna mess with that during the race. Getting that done did a pretty decent job of distracting me until the start, and "Wayward Son," by Kansas was already half finished by the time the airhorn sounded.
I knew the race was supposed to be through the vineyard for part of it, but I didn't realize what a mess of congestion and bad footing that was going to be. It'd been a rainy spring, and there were huge ruts in the path which I couldn't always see due to the number of people running in front of me. Not to mention sticks and knotted pieces of grapevine, huge potholes and rocks. More than one person commented that they were trying to kill us. I said this was probably why they needed the new liability forms. I swear, I didn't intend to talk at all during the race, just knuckle in and go, but that other girl in my clothes was apparently a Chatty Cathy.
I probably expended a little more energy than necessary powering past a few people who insisted on running together despite the trail being pretty narrow and forcing me to run in the ruttiest part of the road. I picked a higher gear until we got out of the vineyard, at which time, everybody, and I mean everybody, split off from me onto the 5k course and left me pretty much running by myself on the 10k. There was one girl ahead of me that I ended up passing in the first mile and never saw again, and one group ahead of me that pretty much stayed there for the rest of the race, and one other lone runner that I leapfrogged for most of the race, and other than that, I never saw most of the 10k field until the turnaround. They were either way ahead of me or way behind me.
At this point, I tried to focus on my pace and heart rate, running the race I had planned. I knew my goal pace was between 10 and 11min/mile. I wanted to finish as close to an hour as possible, but I'd intended to start out closer to the 11min/mile pace and speed up. Imagine my surprise when I checked it a mile in and found out I was going at 9min/mile. Oops. My heart rate was already into my yellow zone, hard running, even though I was still breathing like a green zone run. I made a conscious effort to slow down to at least 10min/mile, but that didn't happen til after the turnaround. My heart rate stayed in the yellow, over 173 bpm for the whole race. Previously, I'd only ever done a 20 minute yellow run. If anyone had told me I could stay in my yellow for over an hour, I'd have called them a liar.
I wasn't even 2.5 miles into the race when the first runner came back the other way. This guy was booking it and had a guy on a bike pacing him. He ended up finishing the race in 37 minutes, I think. Within the next half to 3/4 of a mile, the actual winner of the race (turned out the first guy was just auditing it) and the two female leaders, also the two I had picked from the start, came cruising by going the other way. I think they finished in 42 and 44 minutes.
Me? I was just wondering when we'd get to the top of this friggin' hill. I swear, we started on a hill, turned a corner to another hill, leveled off before going up yet another hill. The course was supposed to be 'rolling.' From now on, I'll understand a rolling course to be uphill the entire race. But I will say I was glad to see the runners coming back in this direction, because I figured that meant we'd finally get to run down all these hills we'd been running up. I went up to the water station thinking we must be pretty close to the turnaround if I was seeing runners. Oh, how naive am I? So, I felt pretty good when I got my water. Despite my best intentions, I had to walk to drink it, because I was really thirsty, and I wanted to drink it, not wear it. At that point, a group of three runners cruised by me. I hadn't even known they were there. What's the point of looking behind you, anyway? I let them go. We weren't even halfway yet, and I had no idea if I could keep going at the pace I was going. I'd rather let them go and catch them at the end than keep spending all my energy leapfrogging them.
I got my first disappointment when I realized the race didn't actually have a turnaround, so to speak, but about a mile loop that just happened to cross back onto a stretch of road we'd already been down, so I was not as close to the turnaround as I thought, and it started to set in that I wasn't even halfway through this race yet. Luckily, I was able to distract myself with oooh, pretty horsies (very lovely countryside we were running through) and eeew, I think that used to be a turtle. (I'd totally have rescued it if I'd run by while it was... less flat.)
The water stop was set up at the point where the outgoing and incoming course loop back on each other, and as I approached it for the second time, I finally started seeing all the runners who were still behind me. I'd been running by myself the whole time after leaving the vineyard, and there was no way in heck I was getting anymore out of this race than an experience, so I put on my biggest smile and waved to everyone I went past. Might as well make it a pleasant experience. If they were walking, I gave 'em thumbs up and said, "looking good." One of the volunteers was running up the road behind a dog on a leash. I said, "No fair, I want a pull." He laughed. That was fun.
About 3/4 of a mile past the water stop for the second time, I stopped seeing other runners except for the five or six right in front of me, so I went back into serious business mode. I think it helped that Patty Smyth's "Warrior" came on my .mp3 player right then. From there on out, apart from saying something snarky to the volunteers whenever I saw one, I was pretty much white knuckling it. Every curve in the road led up to another hill, and we never seemed to get to run back down the other side, just turned off somewhere and kept going up. I knew to shorten my steps and float up them, so I never had to walk, but I really wanted a flat space or a downhill where I could open up a little and try to make up some time.
I never got that.
The little group of runners that had run past me at the first water stop must have sensed the finish line approaching, and they started to break up. Two of them disappeared into the horizon and left one behind. The other lone runner I'd been chasing seemed to be putting some distance between us, but I didn't dare try to catch her going uphill, so I just kept plugging along. The straggler from the group that broke up started to walk, and I'm a little ashamed at how long it took me to catch her while running, but she was walking pretty fast.
Of course, when I got up to her, she started running again. Instead of running past her, I paced her. I had no idea where she started, with all the confusion going through the vineyard, so I wasn't going to put myself out by going around her. Besides, I was kinda lonely. :P I said, ,"You'd think just once we'd get to run down these hills, wouldn't you?" And she laughed, half-heartedly. She said she spent too much time standing at the start line. Her legs were like lead. I didn't wanna say I would be happy just to finish since it was my first race, so I just ran beside her for awhile. We made small talk, but I could tell she was toast. Finally she said something like, "I didn't realize how hard this would be. It seems like it should be easier." At that point, I was already lengthening my stride a little more, and I had no real idea how to respond to that, since everything I read about the subject said racing was supposed to hurt like hell, and I was pretty sure I was already dogging it by trying to have a little fun. I think I said, "You'd think..." and then she was gone. I don't know if she finished, but I think she did.
At that point there was only really one runner ahead of me that I might still be able to catch, and a little over a mile left in which to do it. She was still a good fifty feet ahead of me, though. We approached a turn, and there was a volunteer parked there on a bike directing us back toward the vineyard. Before I could see what was around the corner, I asked him, "Do we get to run downhill NOW?" He laughed and said, "No, but you do get some nice, smooth road for a change." (Okay, the road til then was pretty much crap, but so was the road I ran on every day, so I hadn't even really considered that some people might have had a problem with it.) I turned the corner... and looked UP. The longest hill yet was ahead of me. It wasn't as steep as the hills I run up on a regular basis on my daily runs, but it looked like it went on for the whole rest of the race. I could see the people lining it at the top, so I knew that was the vineyard and people were waiting to see us finish. So much for a finishing kick, I thought. I'd be lucky to make it without walking the last bit.
I might've made a face just then, because the volunteer laughed, gave me a thumbs up, and said, "But you look great out there. Good job. Almost finished."
Okay, so I know that's pretty much his job, but it meant a lot that hesaid that, because that last hill probably would've made me cry if he hadn't. Yes. I am a big GIRL. And proud of it. I took that little bit of encouragement, took a physical and mental assessment of myself, eyed up the remainder of the course, the one runner in front of me, tuned into the song on my .mp3 player, which was "I Need a Hero," by Bonnie Tyler and decided I had something left in me for a kick to the finish.
I tucked my chin, because I couldn't bear to look up that hill anymore and just focused on the few feet of road ahead of me, and started my kick, changed my breathing pattern from every three footfalls to every two and just started sucking wind. About halfway up the hill, I started to see the feet of the runner in front of me, and they kept getting closer. There was a little bit of hesitation as I tried to decide the best way to go around her, then I just pushed on by and kicked it in all the way to the top.
I got to the top still kicking, and turned into the vineyard, expecting the finish line to be right there where it was when we started. I was WRONG! There was just another volunteer directing me off into the vineyard... AGAIN. And up hill, AGAIN. At that point, I had no idea where the finish line was and how much farther I had to go. My miCoach said I'd already run over six miles, so it had to be somewhere nearby, but all I could think was that I was gonna have to run through the entire vineyard again and all I could see was grapevines. I think I almost did cry. LOL. But I rounded a corner at the top of the little rise, and there was another volunteer pointing me down between the row of vines. I realized the finish line was at the end of the row. I could see the clock was at 1:03, well under my goal time, so I found enough juice in me to sprint down the grass lane even though there was no one else running against me at that point.
I was so relieved to cross the line, "Bother" by Stone Sour playing on my Sansa, that I forgot to stop my miCoach right away, yet, ironically, it ended up recording a time of 1:02.40, exactly the same time as the chip recorded for the race. Almost makes me wonder if all the little wireless devices interfere with each other at all, but I'm sure if they did we'd know by now, right?
Anyway, that was the race. The 5kers had already eaten up all the bananas by the time I got there, but I did enjoy that cup of water while we waited for the results to post. I wasn't expecting to place. All the ladies I'd seen who I pegged to be in my age group were wearing marathon finisher shirts, so, yeah... way out of my league, but I wanted an official time to post on my blog, even though I knew I made my goal and then some. Plus, there were the door prizes.
I didn't really care about the door prizes. Sparkling grape juice. LOL. But since I so seldom win anything, and I had nothing else but a t-shirt to show for it, I stuck around. I didn't win a door prize, but half the people who did win them had already left. So, they re-drew, and I went home with a nice bottle of sparkling white grape juice.
All in all a good day.
The Short Story
I predicted I'd run in about 1h, 10minutes. I was hoping for as close to 1hour as possible.
My final time was 1hour 2minutes and 40 seconds, and I'm so thrilled with that. I can't help but wonder what my time would be like on a flatter, smoother course, which means, I guess, that I've now got the bug and will have to do a few more of these. Sadly, this is Central Texas, and there's pretty much nothing after the middle of May. And I took off work this weekend for this race. I doubt my bosses would appreciate me doing it again. So, I probably won't get anymore races 'til fall. That's okay, though. I now have official results. I know I can run a race. And I can adjust my training paces accordingly.
All in all, very rewarding experience.
Pictures:
I didn't get any pictures during the race, because hubby is not very good with the camera. So, we snapped a few after we got home, (and even then, he got a few of nothing but grass, LOL.) Erm, I look like a dork in all of them, but he would only take the pics if he got to pick which ones I posted. He loves to embarrass me. Haha. So, here's three. He didn't say I couldn't crop out the embarrassing bits. :P
This is my dork picture. I knew as soon as I saw it that hubby would pick this one. *cringes*
This is my sparkling grape juice, t-shirt, and race bib. Oh yeah, I'm in there, too. LOL.
And because it took me almost as long to do my hair as run the race, here's a pic of that, too. :P
And there you have it. First race in the books. Looking forward to many more. I've already plugged my results into every racing calculator known to man and reset my training paces accordingly. Looking forward to Chicago with a little bit more perspective and a little less enthusiasm, but just as much excitement.
Until the next bend in the road, watch out for plot holes.
Tracy
Posts
