Saturday, April 10, 2010

Race Report: Essential 2 Life 5K

This photo says it all. 

This was me with the finish line in sight... lungs burning from the 45-degree wind coming up off of the Hudson River... legs feeling heavy... and me chanting in my head (left... right... left... right...) to keep my legs going.

I ran my second 5K this past Saturday with my girlfriend Rashonda and my Uncle Haasim. My mom and girlfriend Nina both did the 3K walk. The kiddo did the kid's sprints. And my dad and girlfriend/blogger StyleScrybe of ShoesNBooze fame came out to support and snap photos. It was a family affair!

Mile 1
Uncle and I started out strong, darting between runners who were running way too slowly in the middle of the pack. The wind blew his hat off, but thankfully it got caught on the railing and another runner caught it and handed it to him. It was so close to flying into the River. We passed the first mile clock still talking to each other: 09:39, but it took about 10 seconds to pass the start line, so it was probably more like 09:29. I was shocked. That was faster than my first mile in Phoenix

Mile 2
Uncle and I stopped talking. 'Nuff said. He then told me that if I wanted to go on ahead to do so. So, I pushed it to the point of just being uncomfortable and tried to hold that pace for the whole second mile. I never really warmed up. The freezing wind was blowing against me for most of mile 2 then at my back for the last part. My fingers froze into fist position. Ugh. Second mile clock: 18:40.

Mile 3
I initially felt somewhat rested after cruising at a steady pace for the second mile, so I tried to kick it up a bit and started passing runners again. But, at every sprint, I felt myself getting winded more than the first mile. So I alternated between passing and cruising. The course was an out-and-back, but I seemed to miscount the turns. After going around one turn, I thought I saw the finish line tape (no contact lenses!), so I started sprinting. I'm sure you can see where this is going. No, it was NOT the finish line. Exhausted, I slowed down around the last turn then tried to hold steady toward the real finish line, about the time that picture was snapped. Lord. I still can't believe I made that mistake.


My official chip time was 28:36.6, 2 minutes and 20 seconds faster than Phoenix!! I placed 10th in my age/gender group.

25-29 F group: 10 out of 53
All females: 62 out of 222
Overall: 250 out of 516

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