partial race report

Step Toward a Cure 5K, benefiting the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation

My daughter's best friend was having her Bat Mitzvah at 10:30 am almost an hour away. So I knew a race starting at 8:30 am was marginal, but it started half a mile from my house and was for a good cause so I signed up. I rode around on my mountain bike for a while to warm up and then left my bike at the top of a steep hill near the park where the race started.

The really really frustrating thing was that the race started 10 minutes late. It was a hilly course and started up hill, but by half a mile or so I had the feel of keeping running up hill and speeding up down hill. The miles weren't marked (this was very much a local race, no numbers or chips) but it was 8:56 am when I got to the place where the route turned away from my home, so I decided I had to go home a shorter way. I ran back to my bicycle, though I slowed down a bit after I left the race. I got to my bicycle in 38:36 and hurried home to shower and throw on a dress.

I was ready to leave at 9:30 am, as I had planned, and I got very angry when my husband wasn't ready to go. I had told him that I needed him to be in the car waiting impatiently for me at 9:30. We actually got to the Bat Mitzvah in time, so I feel guilty for how angry I was.

But I was very disappointed not to be able to finish the race, so it was very frustrating to sacrifice what I wanted to do in order to be on time and then have to wait for him. When we got home again after the Bat Mitzvah I drove the route I ran to see how long it was. To my surprise it was 3.1 miles, according to my car odometer. I don't know if the race route was long or whether I was wrong in thinking my route would be shorter. My fastest race pace yet, and on a hillier course: 12.4 minute miles.

It was actually the first real 5 K race I have entered, running only instead of a triathlon. I started in the back of the group of runners (there were walkers too) and I think I passed more people than passed me. I felt like I belonged.