Welll … that’s kind of an overstatement.
I didn’t break the finish line glory or anything, but I got 1st place in my age group…
…and 6th place overall in the Capital Striders Capital Pursuit 5K.
yes. 5K.
Don’t look at me like that. I don’t normally do short distance, but instead of sitting at home and sleeping I thought I’d rather be out running. Or at least on Friday I decided that on Sunday I’d rather be running than sleeping. When I got to Sunday morning I realized I was horribly mistaken.
BUT I did it. And I did it well!
I forced myself out of bed and decided I was going to run the race I signed up for on Friday to accomplish something on Sunday (and not try to go too hardcore into running it). So I made myself a killer playlist of 25 minutes’ worth of “power songs”, suited up, and hit the road.
As a long-distsance runner, I had no idea how to start a 5K—I was afraid of starting too fast (which I did). But I allowed myself to slow down in the middle a bit so I could go hard at the finish line.
I wouldn’t have run so dang fast if there wasn’t what looked like a 9-year-old kid in front of me. As in, I’m getting beat by a 9-year-old and I have a side cramp and OHMYGOD I want to go back to bed!
But, I powered through, thinking “I ran a flipping marathon. There’s no way I was going to let this little kid beat me at a 5K.”
He did.
(Not by much.)
Anyway, my goal was to run this thing in under 26 minutes. I was near the end and hadn’t checked the time on my iPod (it psyches me out!). I saw the race clock out of the corner of my eye as I ran by and swore it said “24-somethingorother”.
I thought, “Crap. I’m not going to make 26 minutes. Screw you 9-year-old. I’ll catch you later. I’m slowing down!”
BUT WAIT. That’s not a 4. That’s a 1! How the —
*sprint*
Somehow I didn’t quite beat the 9-year-old, but I made it to the finish in 22:08 (according to my iPod—the official time was 22:21).
A 5K in 22 minutes. TWENTY TWO??! Wow.
Not lightening speed or anything, but that is pretty fast. For me especially.
So I grabbed a banana (since I like those now), a bagel bite, and some Gatorade, and got in line to be stretched out by the local med students.
Side note: WHY did I never take advantage of the stretchage before? Wow. Does wonders.
After my snack-n-stretch, I noticed they were posting the results so I took a peek. I usually fall somewhere in the middle so I started looking on page 4 or so. Nope. That was the 30-minute range. Okay … page 2? Page ONE? Wow. Sixth place?!
AND I got first in my age division. Probably going to happen again for a very long time considering in less than two weeks I’m going to be 25, which puts me in the 25–35 age range (i.e. where a lot of the elites fall).
But, in case you’re curious, I’ve included the graph of the race (note that it drops off after I finish because I had to jog around the block to get my iPod to think I hit the 5K distance).
