Survival Of The Slowest

This weekend I drove to Birmingham to visit my "bestest" friend, his wife, and his never-ending ball of energy son. Because my beautiful wife and the little princess were off to see the grand-parents in Colorado, I also used this trip to run in my first "real" 10K road race. I ran in the Hueytown 5K/10K.

I really only had two goals for the race: (1) finish and (2) if I was able to accomplish the first goal, I wanted to run the 6.2 miles in an hour or less. Well I completed the race in 55:56, the actual time was something like 56:13, but I'll stick to the time on my watch - because I start at the very back of the pack of racers, the official time clock as already reached a minute or more by the time my slow butt crosses it to start my time!

I ran the first 3.1 miles (5K) at about 29 minutes. It was a pretty steady pace, the music in my iPod helped me stick to an easy 9-10 minute/mile pace. Two unfortunate things happened about mile 4, the music in my iPod changed from a steady beat to a more driving tempo AND I realized that I was probably the last person (a police car would come up from behind me and cruise next to me for a minute or so; would then drive up ahead and wait for me to get to next to them; this scenario repeated for about 3/4 mile or so).

With the combination of the police car stalking me and the change of tempo in my head, I began to steadily increase my pace - I ended up passing 5 or 6 runners within the 4.5 and 5th mile (I was determined not to be the last person on the course). As I approached to the last curve, there was one more person ahead of me. I was able to pass him and finish before him (I think the time difference between us was less than 5/100th of a second!)

I crossed the finish line of the race, a volunteer stopped me dead in my tracks to rip off the bottom portion of my racing number, and I realized...I finished. I just ran 6.2 miles! I was extremely pleased with my self and gave some awesome mental high-5s (no family or friends were there to help out with the hand slapping - oh well, there is always next time for them).

As I cooled down from the race, I met up with the winner of the entire race (he is the brother of my bestest friend's wife). He asked my time and I told him with a bit of a smirk on my face (I knew that he had blown my time out of the water - but he was a college runner, a high school state cross country winner, is younger by almost 5-8 years, and was in MUCH better shape than me).

I told him my time and without even giving thought to my own self-esteem, I asked what his time was. He told me he finished in about 36 minutes. He had completed the race; had run a mile or so to cool down; and probably could have driven back to his house by the time I came rounding the corner to finish.

I really did have a great weekend hanging out with friends that I don't get to see enough of and running in the race. I am now looking for another race for October (5K in August, 10K September...). I need to find either a 12K or 15K for this month.

The marathon I am running in is less than 22 weeks away. That sound like a lot to some people, but the furthest I have run so far is 6.2 miles and I have to be able to run and complete 26+ miles in March. There are more miles to tackle and the deadline is getting approaching quickly.