Sorting Out The Shelburne Farms 5K

It almost didn’t happen. When I got to Shelburne Farms the parking lot was empty. The directions said to follow the signs. There weren’t any to be found. I drove around to some alternate entrances for a while but I got the feeling I was barking up the wrong tree. Once I got back to the main entrance I saw a car traveling down the winding road deep into the farm. I decided to follow. After many twists and turns roaming miles into the green hills I finally arrived at the race location near the water. Pretty beautiful place.

Danny and I left separately and I didn’t have my cell phone on me and as I registered I worried he would have the same trouble finding the appropriate spot. He arrived around race time and got in just under the wire.

My goal going in was simply this: run the whole way, don’t stop to walk.

As the race started I did what I was afraid I was going to do, I blew it all on about the first half mile of the race. Going around the first turn a swallowed wrong and started choking. I’ll tell you it was very difficult to keep running but I did right the ship. I just remember my thought process going something like this:

…Wow, I’m feeling pretty good, and I’m near the front of the pack!

…Well, this has been nice but I’m starting to get pretty darn tired here. At least we are almost done!

…Oh no, was that really the 1 mile marker I just passed?

Seeing that marker was just plain trippy, I thought for sure the race was winding up. At that point I decided to modify my stride or I was never going to make it. I started getting passed by people. A lot of people. Some elderly people. I started looking over my shoulder just to make sure I was still ahead of someone. Danny had long since left my field of vision.

I can’t tell you how sad it is to not be a natural athlete anymore. I used to be able to jump into anything and pretty much excel. I used to be able to exert myself all day and not get sore. I used to run an 8 minute mile without sweating. All of a sudden I’m 1.5 miles in if I’m lucky and I’m wheezing and in serious danger of not meeting my one goal for the race. This is my first race in 7 years and I avoided a strong temptation to set higher goals, and now I might fail a lesser goal? Oh boy.

It had been a cold morning and I made a very bad choice to wear a long sleeve shirt. I regretted this almost from the first step. Saturday morning was following an absolutely apocalyptic Friday night of sports. I was up very late watching and ended up staying up all night which is a habit of mine. Wrong night to do this obviously. I was out of energy early. It sounds like I’m making some excuses here but I’m giving the accurate story. The following things are also true:

- I didn’t have any water before or during the race

- I ate a Quaker Oatmeal To Go Bar before the race because I couldn’t find anything else. These bars always taste horribly stale when you buy them new. This particular bar was in my parents pantry for God knows how long. You can only imagine how my stomach thanked me

- While I was watching baseball Friday night, I ran 4 miles. I also ran 4 miles the previous 2 days and 2 miles the previous 3 days before that. I was trying to catch up in my program. I lesson I refuse to learn

- At around the 2.5 mile mark we passed a barn with about 30 cows in it. Makes it very difficult to take deep breaths.

Anyway, I made it to the finish with my goal intact. I ran the 3.1 miles in 31:24 for an average mile speed of 10:07. Certainly not what I was hoping. But after thinking about it for a while I put it in perspective. Yes, I huffed and puffed most of the way and felt like crap, but 10:07 isn’t too bad when I go back to my running records and calculate an average mile time on my runs. On the treadmill I was basically lounging to a 16:00 mile or so. Just trying not to get hurt. So I suppose as bad as it sounds 10:07 is an improvement. I also have these short observations:

- I caught a 2nd wind that lasted about 15 seconds. But my 3rd wind lasted quite a while and was the key to getting me to the finish

- Running on the treadmill is a completely different animal than running in the real world. This is something I already knew, but this just reinforced the point. I could run on the treadmill all day. The road is so much harder. The treadmill is just so darn convenient though!

- Out in the real world it is much harder to monitor my speed. I would have prevented my early blow out in part if I could see how fast I was going on the scale of the treadmill so I could compare my workout speed to race speed.

- A lack of an i-pod was absolutely killer. At this point I need music or the TV to keep my mind occupied. I can’t be thinking about each step or how thirsty I am every moment of the run. My i-pod was full of talk radio and comedy for a trip to Ireland and I didn’t think laughing while panting was a good idea so I left the i-pod at home. After further review, I think it would have been a good thing just to keep me distracted.

If nothing else, the race was a good opportunity to assess where I am as a runner. It was a good balance between wake up call to work harder and encouragement that I dropped my average mile time and didn’t injure myself. I was sore in my thighs from the knee up but felt fine otherwise. No sign of shin splints…until a few days after. I thought I escaped them, but they showed up later. Luckily once again I had a trip lined up that basically forced me to rest. I went to Ireland for a week so I’m feeling better.

** Pictures will be added when I get back to my main computer **