Check out this medal! I ran like a god--or as close to a running god as I am likely to get--to earn it.
I had a fantastic time today with my Team in Training homies! And I ran 10 miles and got a medal for it! What more could you ask for?
After a 4:45 alarm, I managed to get ready for a 6:00 AM departure, eating my usual pre-race breakfast of two eggs and half a toasted buttered bagel. I packed a toasted peanut-butter-and-banana bagel for later and started shuffling cars around so Liz and Amy would be able to park in my driveway. Although our departure was a bit late, everything worked out fine, and we were on time for our rendezvous with Kelli, the fourth member of our intrepid carpool.
After a 4:45 alarm, I managed to get ready for a 6:00 AM departure, eating my usual pre-race breakfast of two eggs and half a toasted buttered bagel. I packed a toasted peanut-butter-and-banana bagel for later and started shuffling cars around so Liz and Amy would be able to park in my driveway. Although our departure was a bit late, everything worked out fine, and we were on time for our rendezvous with Kelli, the fourth member of our intrepid carpool.
What Charlie's Angels would look like if they were carpooling to a road race togetherLiz ably directed me into the city, and we pulled into our parking spot at the race site at 7:15, with oodles of time before our 8:30 race start.
We are ready to rumble! Especially Amy in the middle.
The first order of business was, of course, to find a bathroom. There was a bathhouse on the lakeshore right next to the parking lot, but of course that would have been too easy. It was locked up. We had to hike a long path up the hillside to another building where they were doing packet pickup. There were flush toilets in the building, but only two stalls in the ladies' room. You can imagine how long a line that was! While we were waiting in line, I asked Kelli (who is a doctor) about my eye. She said it looked like blepharitis and recommended warm compresses and wiping the lids with Q-tips. I wonder if my wearing contacts has anything to do with it.
After checking where the start line was (always a good thing to know), we trekked back down the hill and back to the car to remove our extra layers and other things we didn't want to be running the race with. I gave Liz a gel to carry in her pocket, which turned out to be a very good thing, and handed out several salt packets. I wanted to try "doing the salt" at mile 6, which basically means downing the contents of a mini salt packet like you'd get at a fast-food place. Yeah, gross, but it replenishes your electrolytes and really helps you in the last miles of a longer run.
We trudged back up the hill, me munching on my peanut-butter-and-banana bagel and sipping water the whole way up, and then it was time to get in line for the bathroom again--only now there were many, many more people there, so I got in a port-a-potty line.
Just like at the grocery store, the line I got in seemed to be the slowest. The 5K race started at 8:20, and a few people had to leave my line because they weren't going to make it in time. It was 8:22 when I got out of the port-a-potty, and not 30 seconds afterward, the cowbells rang to send the 5K runners on their way.
Because this race had chip timing, the ten-miler runners were very casual about lining up at the start line. It wasn't so much a line as a mob sort of standing around any which way. I used the last few minutes to check my shoes, stretch just a little, and reunite with Liz, Amy, and Kelli, whom I lost track of during my odyssey through the port-a-potty line. I also chatted up two or three other people wearing Team in Training shirts, including two who are running the Cleveland Half whom I had never seen before.
The cowbells rang out once more to start the race, and we were far enough back that we didn't move at all for about 45 seconds. Then we walked for over a minute and finally managed to work up to a jog just before we crossed the start line, with 2:08 already on the clock.
We settled into a groove and ran amiably through the drizzle, hitting mile 1 at a surprisingly swift 10:50. The course took us out of the park and into a beautiful tree-lined residential neighborhood. To my surprise, even in the gray chilly damp, there were people standing and sitting out in front of their houses cheering us runners on. There weren't acres and acres of them, but I'm not used to seeing any spectators at all, so I lapped up the attention. I really appreciated it and tried to smile and thank as many of them as possible.
Two of these people really stood out. The first one was an older lady who had a cowbell and rang it vigorously as we went by. ("More cowbell!" Kelli yelled happily, and everyone around us who got the joke laughed.) The second one was a few hundred yards down the street on the other side, a woman maybe 40 years old, clearly a runner by the way she looked and dressed. She called out a steady stream of encouragement while clapping and pacing back and forth across the tree lawn like a basketball coach at a playoff game: "All right, all right! Looking strong, way to go! Great job, runners!" It was SO COOL.
Somewhere around mile 3, Amy got a fire in her belly and moved off ahead, leaving me and Kelli to eat her dust. I was afraid to try and go with her for fear I'd bonk before the end of the race. I figured I'd catch her later if she'd miscalculated. As it was, Kelli and I hit mile 3 in 31 minutes and change, so we were running pretty fast for that early in the race.
We hit the turnaround a quarter-mile shy of mile 4, so now we were headed back down the other side of the beautiful tree-lined street. I was in such a groove I almost forgot to get out my gel at the mile 4 water stop. I only needed about 45 seconds to down my gel and drink my water, and then it was back to pounding the pavement.
There were plates across the roadway to record our official 5-mile split times, and Kelli and I crossed them at 52:54 for a 10:35 pace per mile--not as fast as the 5-mile race I ran last month (51:25), but still quite decent. Now it was time to see if I could live up to the new nickname Kelli has given me of "Negative Splits." (It just means you run the second half of the race faster than the first half. It's a good thing to do if you can manage it.)
The rain picked up some, to the point that I had to put my hood up, but fortunately it slacked off again after ten minutes or so, and I tied the jacket around my waist for the rest of the race. At mile 6, I tore open my salt packet and tried to eat the salt with some water. It tasted pretty icky, so I went ahead and took some Gatorade from the other table and drank that. (You're not supposed to take gels and Gatorade together because that's too much glucose at once.) Man, did that work! The next mile felt absolutely fantastic, and this was where I ended up leaving Kelli behind. (Sorry, Kelli.) So I will definitely do this in the half-marathon.
Shortly after the Water/Gatorade Stop of Awesomeness, I came back to the place where Cheering Runner Lady and More Cowbell Lady had been--and they were STILL THERE! I told More Cowbell Lady, "Such dedication! You rock!" and she said, "No, YOU rock!" and rang her cowbell extra loud.
Soon we were in a different part of town, having run out of Beautiful Tree-Lined Residential Street to run on. This part of town looked nasty. Nasty as in "I would not go there in broad daylight without police protection" nasty. The old ramshackle houses were all jammed on top of each other, mostly in awful repair, and most of the tiny front yards had rusting metal fences around them. It was just creepy and depressing. We ran down a couple of blocks of this, past a super-creepy abandoned industrial building, and then turned right and ran past all of these brand-new lofts and townhouses being built in an area called Battery Park. Yeah, as in "you can expect to be a victim of battery if you walk three blocks away."
Fortunately, we made a few more turns and were running down another semi-main drag when we came upon mile 8! Hurrah, beautiful mile 8! I had been looking forward to another stop for a good five minutes and was glad to see it come up on the left. I did my second gel, an apple-cinnamon one this time, and it tasted delightful. I looked at my watch once I started running again and saw I was at 1:25 or so. If I could run two ten-minute miles to finish the race, I could come in at under 1:45:00 (my secret goal)!
I really dropped the hammer on the last two miles. I felt great and wanted to pass some runners (and hit my goal), so off I went. The last mile wound back into Edgewater Park and went right by my car, still ensconced in its parking spot. For a horrible moment I thought the race course went back up that rather steep hill we'd had to walk up twice before the race, but thankfully, it turned right instead and followed the shoreline. In the distance, I could see a big white tent, but I still wasn't sure how far away from the finish I was. I kicked up the pace another notch and passed six or eight more people coming into the final turn. There stood another lady with a cowbell (yay!), and then spectators and runners who had already finished lined the sides of the course, cheering, and the red timer lights loomed large on either side. The announcer's voice called out the time as people thundered up to the finish. The timer box said 1:44 something when I crossed, and a smiling woman congratulated me and pressed a medal into my hand.
Yay!! I had done it! And there Amy was giving me a high-five and a hug. She'd finished three minutes before me--wow! I immediately unwrapped the medal and put it around my neck, panting and grinning and elated. She and I didn't want to leave the finish until Kelli came over--"She's got to be right behind me!"--and she did, about three minutes later, provoking another happy round of high-fives and woooooots and hugs.
The refreshment tent was well stocked with water and bananas and granola bars and scrambled eggs. I had some of everything at a picnic table next to the finish, all the while keeping an eye out for Liz. I had just finished everything when I saw her Team in Training shirt coming down the path, so I ran back to her and whooped and hollered and probably embarrassed the living daylights out of her, and Kelli and Amy high-fived and hugged her on the back side of the finish line and got her a bottle of water.
After checking where the start line was (always a good thing to know), we trekked back down the hill and back to the car to remove our extra layers and other things we didn't want to be running the race with. I gave Liz a gel to carry in her pocket, which turned out to be a very good thing, and handed out several salt packets. I wanted to try "doing the salt" at mile 6, which basically means downing the contents of a mini salt packet like you'd get at a fast-food place. Yeah, gross, but it replenishes your electrolytes and really helps you in the last miles of a longer run.
We trudged back up the hill, me munching on my peanut-butter-and-banana bagel and sipping water the whole way up, and then it was time to get in line for the bathroom again--only now there were many, many more people there, so I got in a port-a-potty line.
Just like at the grocery store, the line I got in seemed to be the slowest. The 5K race started at 8:20, and a few people had to leave my line because they weren't going to make it in time. It was 8:22 when I got out of the port-a-potty, and not 30 seconds afterward, the cowbells rang to send the 5K runners on their way.
Because this race had chip timing, the ten-miler runners were very casual about lining up at the start line. It wasn't so much a line as a mob sort of standing around any which way. I used the last few minutes to check my shoes, stretch just a little, and reunite with Liz, Amy, and Kelli, whom I lost track of during my odyssey through the port-a-potty line. I also chatted up two or three other people wearing Team in Training shirts, including two who are running the Cleveland Half whom I had never seen before.
The cowbells rang out once more to start the race, and we were far enough back that we didn't move at all for about 45 seconds. Then we walked for over a minute and finally managed to work up to a jog just before we crossed the start line, with 2:08 already on the clock.
We settled into a groove and ran amiably through the drizzle, hitting mile 1 at a surprisingly swift 10:50. The course took us out of the park and into a beautiful tree-lined residential neighborhood. To my surprise, even in the gray chilly damp, there were people standing and sitting out in front of their houses cheering us runners on. There weren't acres and acres of them, but I'm not used to seeing any spectators at all, so I lapped up the attention. I really appreciated it and tried to smile and thank as many of them as possible.
Two of these people really stood out. The first one was an older lady who had a cowbell and rang it vigorously as we went by. ("More cowbell!" Kelli yelled happily, and everyone around us who got the joke laughed.) The second one was a few hundred yards down the street on the other side, a woman maybe 40 years old, clearly a runner by the way she looked and dressed. She called out a steady stream of encouragement while clapping and pacing back and forth across the tree lawn like a basketball coach at a playoff game: "All right, all right! Looking strong, way to go! Great job, runners!" It was SO COOL.
Somewhere around mile 3, Amy got a fire in her belly and moved off ahead, leaving me and Kelli to eat her dust. I was afraid to try and go with her for fear I'd bonk before the end of the race. I figured I'd catch her later if she'd miscalculated. As it was, Kelli and I hit mile 3 in 31 minutes and change, so we were running pretty fast for that early in the race.
We hit the turnaround a quarter-mile shy of mile 4, so now we were headed back down the other side of the beautiful tree-lined street. I was in such a groove I almost forgot to get out my gel at the mile 4 water stop. I only needed about 45 seconds to down my gel and drink my water, and then it was back to pounding the pavement.
There were plates across the roadway to record our official 5-mile split times, and Kelli and I crossed them at 52:54 for a 10:35 pace per mile--not as fast as the 5-mile race I ran last month (51:25), but still quite decent. Now it was time to see if I could live up to the new nickname Kelli has given me of "Negative Splits." (It just means you run the second half of the race faster than the first half. It's a good thing to do if you can manage it.)
The rain picked up some, to the point that I had to put my hood up, but fortunately it slacked off again after ten minutes or so, and I tied the jacket around my waist for the rest of the race. At mile 6, I tore open my salt packet and tried to eat the salt with some water. It tasted pretty icky, so I went ahead and took some Gatorade from the other table and drank that. (You're not supposed to take gels and Gatorade together because that's too much glucose at once.) Man, did that work! The next mile felt absolutely fantastic, and this was where I ended up leaving Kelli behind. (Sorry, Kelli.) So I will definitely do this in the half-marathon.
Shortly after the Water/Gatorade Stop of Awesomeness, I came back to the place where Cheering Runner Lady and More Cowbell Lady had been--and they were STILL THERE! I told More Cowbell Lady, "Such dedication! You rock!" and she said, "No, YOU rock!" and rang her cowbell extra loud.
Soon we were in a different part of town, having run out of Beautiful Tree-Lined Residential Street to run on. This part of town looked nasty. Nasty as in "I would not go there in broad daylight without police protection" nasty. The old ramshackle houses were all jammed on top of each other, mostly in awful repair, and most of the tiny front yards had rusting metal fences around them. It was just creepy and depressing. We ran down a couple of blocks of this, past a super-creepy abandoned industrial building, and then turned right and ran past all of these brand-new lofts and townhouses being built in an area called Battery Park. Yeah, as in "you can expect to be a victim of battery if you walk three blocks away."
Fortunately, we made a few more turns and were running down another semi-main drag when we came upon mile 8! Hurrah, beautiful mile 8! I had been looking forward to another stop for a good five minutes and was glad to see it come up on the left. I did my second gel, an apple-cinnamon one this time, and it tasted delightful. I looked at my watch once I started running again and saw I was at 1:25 or so. If I could run two ten-minute miles to finish the race, I could come in at under 1:45:00 (my secret goal)!
I really dropped the hammer on the last two miles. I felt great and wanted to pass some runners (and hit my goal), so off I went. The last mile wound back into Edgewater Park and went right by my car, still ensconced in its parking spot. For a horrible moment I thought the race course went back up that rather steep hill we'd had to walk up twice before the race, but thankfully, it turned right instead and followed the shoreline. In the distance, I could see a big white tent, but I still wasn't sure how far away from the finish I was. I kicked up the pace another notch and passed six or eight more people coming into the final turn. There stood another lady with a cowbell (yay!), and then spectators and runners who had already finished lined the sides of the course, cheering, and the red timer lights loomed large on either side. The announcer's voice called out the time as people thundered up to the finish. The timer box said 1:44 something when I crossed, and a smiling woman congratulated me and pressed a medal into my hand.
Yay!! I had done it! And there Amy was giving me a high-five and a hug. She'd finished three minutes before me--wow! I immediately unwrapped the medal and put it around my neck, panting and grinning and elated. She and I didn't want to leave the finish until Kelli came over--"She's got to be right behind me!"--and she did, about three minutes later, provoking another happy round of high-fives and woooooots and hugs.
The refreshment tent was well stocked with water and bananas and granola bars and scrambled eggs. I had some of everything at a picnic table next to the finish, all the while keeping an eye out for Liz. I had just finished everything when I saw her Team in Training shirt coming down the path, so I ran back to her and whooped and hollered and probably embarrassed the living daylights out of her, and Kelli and Amy high-fived and hugged her on the back side of the finish line and got her a bottle of water.
A nice guy we waylaid in the parking lot named Mike took these pictures. Look how happy we are with our medals!We were all ecstatic because we all met our goals. Amy was trying to beat her previous PR of 1:48:00, and she stomped it into the ground; Kelli wanted to run faster than 11-minute miles, and she did that handily (10:26 pace--awesome!); I wanted to beat 1:45:00, and I did (my official chip time was 1:42:08--YEAH, BABY!!), and Liz wanted to break two hours, and she did.
Oh, and I did run negative splits, so I can keep my nickname. I ran the first five miles in 52:54 and the second five miles in 49:14! That's a 10:35 per mile pace on the first half and a 9:50 (!!) pace per mile on the second half. I am certain I ran under 10 minutes on both of those last two miles. I came in 112th out of 165 in my age group (so hey, I beat 53 people in my age group alone!), and I came in 1331st out of 1665 people who finished within the 3-hour time limit--pretty well at the back of the pack, but a ten-mile race probably attracts more seasoned runners than a shorter distance. Yes, you can just show up and walk a 5K or even a five-miler, but ten miles is getting out of reach for the non-trained person.
We rocked it out! Thanks to Liz, Kelli, and Amy for making it an awesome day!
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