Today I competed in my first ever running competition. A few days ago I was looking over the website for the local fireworks celebration and I noticed that they have a 5 kilometer walk/run as part of the festivities. As I’ve been doing on occasion lately, I said to myself, “I’m in good enough shape to do that!” The deadline for preregistration was back in June, so I wasn’t going to manage that, but for the $15 entry fee I got a t-shirt, and I figured that would suffice to cover my donation that I normally give to the group for the fireworks that will be later this evening.

So, on Friday I ran to the library and back. Total distance of around 5.2 kilometers. It took me 27 minutes. The first mile took me 7 minutes and 33 seconds. The second mile was near that time, but the third mile really slowed me down. The route to the library and back has more of a hill that the expected race route, though, so I was hoping for a slightly faster time. I figured if I could do 25-26 I’d be happy. 24 minutes would be really nice.

On Saturday I ran/walked about 6 miles. Mostly, I walked. It was about 95 degrees that day, and I just wasn’t really in the mood to kill myself. On Sunday, I walked about a mile and a half, and I didn’t do any leg exercise on Monday. I figured my legs should be ready for Tuesday’s race that way.

The race route

This morning I got up about 7:30 and had some Total cereal with milk. At 9:30 or so I started to drink a little bit of Gatorade, and at 9:55 I started walking over to where the race was going to start. I got over there about 10:10 and there were a lot of people already there. I found the line for registration and then I waited.
A few minutes after I got there, Rob showed up. He was about 5-6 people behind me in line. The kid’s race around Assembly Hall started right there while we were waiting in line. We slowly made our way up to registration and when I was about 10 people back, the guys getting tshirts were complaining that Extra Large was all they had. That’s a bummer. I was wanting a medium. Guess next time I need to get here sooner. I made it up to the registration table, gave them my form and my money, they gave me a number to put on my shirt along with some safety pins…. And that was it. They had run out of tshirts. So, no tshirt for me. :( Oh well. Live and learn… Live and learn..

Anyway, we got registered and I stood in line for a while for the bathroom, but the call to line up for the race happened before I had a chance to make it to the portapotty. Luckily, it wasn’t a pressing need, and I went and got in line for the race. A guy near the front talked for a while into one of those battery powered megaphones and finally realized that no one could hear him, and he started yelling out directions: On Kirby/Florida Avenue, go how traffic would go. South side going out, north side coming back. Two water stations, and at the end, runners to the left, and walkers to the right. Then, good luck to all, on your mark, get set, and Go!

It was a bit crowded at the beginning as well over 400 runners and walkers headed out, but it didn’t take too long for things to spread out some. I headed up Fourth Street, turned east onto Kirby Avenue and made my way eastward. In the first half mile or so of my runs, I have to convince my body that I mean business. I go through a period there where it would be more enjoyable to walk, but once I get into the groove I can go for quite a while. Before turning north onto Lincoln, there was a water station where they were holding out cups to grab. I wasn’t feeling the need, so I kept on going. We turned north onto Lincoln, and at the first major cross street (Pennsylvania) I saw a sign that read ’1′, meaning 1 mile in. I looked at my watch, and I was going at an 8 minute pace. I kept heading up Lincoln, and, at some point, saw the guys in the front of the pack heading south. Needless to say, I wasn’t providing them any competition. I made it to Jimmy Johns, which is near Nevada. The race was supposed to turn around near Nevada. But we kept going north. A couple of blocks later there was a water station and the turn around. I tried to grab some water, but no one had a cup handy for me, so I passed by, turned back to the south, and kept on going. At this point, I was watching the people on the other side that were actually slower than me. That’s a nice change. Before, I was seeing all these people, young and old, who were running faster than me. But now, I was getting to see some of the people who were thinking that about me!

Back down at Pennsylvania, I passed the 2 mile sign. 15:40 in. Did the second mile 20 seconds faster than the first. Would be nice to keep that up. Turned west toward home, managed to grab a cup of water at the water station there. Took one swallow, managed to get a lot of it down my nose, and coughed for a while there as I was getting rid of water that went where it shouldn’t have went. I could sense that I was slowing down a little bit at this stage of the race. But, there was too much left for me to really start kicking in the speed. So, I kept going as well as I could. Once I turned south onto Fourth Street, the end was only a few tenths of a mile away. I started building up speed. I went by the 3 mile mark. Kept going. Going.. Going.. and stop. I looked at my watch. 24:35. Wow! But, I wasn’t done. There was a queue at the finish line while people were getting their official times recorded. By the time I made it to the official timer, I was at around 24:58. I don’t know the actual time yet. A guy wrote down my number, and then they tore off the bottom part of the number paper as an official record (I hope they don’t ever drop those things out of order). Then, I found a place to sit down. Rob was coming up to the queue point then. He ended up having a time of about 25:30, probably 26 official. Both of us did really well! I’m quite pleased with my time. Fastest I’ve ever run that. But, I wish it had been faster. When you do the math it figures out to 7.58 miles per hour, or about a 7.91 minute mile.

We noticed a board where they were arranging people in order of arrival. After a while, I found my number. I came in 177th overall (Annoyingly, that picture chopped off the number row. The numbers you can see are for the row beneath mine. I’m right above the number for 227). Rob ended up at 216th. We got a poweraide drink that they had for the racers, and were preparing to leave when they had the award ceremony. The overall winning time was 14:42 (which, in my opinion, is very impressive) and set a new record for the event. For my age range, 30-34, the top three male finishers were all under 20:40. So, I don’t know exactly where I came out in my age range, but I wasn’t in the race expecting to win, so I have no complaints. My only complaint is that I didn’t get a tshirt. I wanted a shirt for my first race. Oh well. After that, I ran back home, took a shower, and here I am, writing it up.

We saw a few people that we knew. Bob McGrew walked with, presumably, his daughter. Marc, from BISS, walked in the race. Jim Myers, from NCSA ran, and Steve Bond also ran. Rob talked to a friend of his that I didn’t know. You just never know who you might see at these things. All things considered, a good event. It’s interesting to see the subculture that surrounds things like this. A lot of the people were wearing tshirts from 5 and 10k runs that they had done several years ago. People behind me in the registration line were talking about marathons that they had signed up for.. Interesting stuff.

UPDATE: In my age range, 30-35, the top times were 17:58, 18:59, 19:27, 20:37, 21:21, 21:49, 23:02, 23:28, 23:36, 23:49, 23:57, 23:59, 24:05, 24:15, 24:18, 24:23, 24:57, and then my official time of 25:04.

Link To Race Results

So, I came in 18th in my age group. Nothing to write home about, but hey, it was my first race!

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