Victory over Violence: 5k race report

I ran Saturday's Victory over Violence 5K just to check and see where my fitness was. I knew I could get under 20 minutes, but I didn't think I could hit my PR of 19:25 I hit last November.

The big reason I thought this was because my PR came right at the end of training for the White Rock Marathon. I was eating good and tapering. Saturday's run would come a five weeks after I ran the Cowtown Marathon and I have not been eating good. In fact, I've put on 8 pounds since Cowtown.

Still, I wanted to run a good race. So Friday night, at my brother's bachelor dinner, I only drank one beer and one Bloody Mary. I was in bed by midnight and woke up two hours before the race started. Still, I fiddled around so much that I had to run to the start line and as I got to the back of the pack, the gun went off for the start. So, I had to spend the first half mile dodging people walking their baby strollers. I thought I was in a Babies R Us convention at one point.

And something else was conspiring against me. Unlike last week's 10k, I remembered to bring my Garmin 301 this time. But because it was late, it never found a sattelite and again, I had to run a race not knowing exactly how fast I was going. Of course, at least during this race I could look at the elapsed time on my Garmin and get decent splits at each mile.

So, after dodging so many baby strollers at the beginning of the race, I was pleased when I hit the Mile 1 split in 6:34. And I was ecstatic when I hit the Mile 2 marker in 5:56. (I've ever run anything in 5 something!!) At this point, I start trying to do some math and figure if average about a 6:20 the rest of the way, I would have a chance at a PR.

It was sooo humid outside, sooo humid and I couldn't breath and it was like a towel was in my throat, but that was ok. I could slow down and get that 6:20. So I slowed down. And at 18:30 I looked for the Mile 3 marker and didn't find it. 18:40? Not there. 19:00? Not there. Uh-oh, I thought. Did I slow down too much? Finally, a few seconds later, I get to Mile 3 and know instantly that a PR isn't happening today. And then I realize I'd better book it if I wanna get in under 20 minutes. So, I turn on the gas and hit the finish in 19:55.

19:55. That's 30 seconds slower than my PR. But I'm definitely happy with the time. And I'm even happier when I find out that I have finished third in my age group. later in the race, some of us are talking about how fast our 2nd mile was. And then we realize it was short and that Mile 3 was long. Oh, well. A sub-20 5K is a sub 20-5k whether its sub by 5 seconds or by 35 seconds.