Waterford 5K RR


Waterford 5K:
I hate 5Ks, let's start with that.  I've run many and 70% of them had me having asthma attacks.  So why in the world do I go to run to the park on Wednesday and a fellow member of the group (Pepe, it's your fault) tells me about this evening race and I go home and register?  WTF?

Since I registered and I hate 5Ks and I don't think they are fun, I decided to give it a good PR effort.  So, I found my most bright clothes (red, of course), my lightest shoes (Ronins) and decided to go all out and see what I could do.

Since I was off yesterday afternoon, I took advantage of that by relaxing, eating, and resting a lot.  At 5pm I left the house and proceeded to spend 1 hour in rush hour traffic to drive the 6 miles to the starting line.  By the time I got there, the cops had closed the entrance to the area and I had to park a mile away.  Ran a mile to pick my packet (almost didn't make it), then ran another mile to the car to leave my stuff and continue on with my warmup.

While warming up I noticed that it was windy (15mph) and that no matter where I turn, I always had a headwind (twister winds, for those that do not know).  I hoped this would not be the race course, but passing the Mile 3 marker while warming up made me realize I was an idiot for thinking that, LOL.

As we wait to start, I hear a guy saying he does this every year and today was super windy, compared to other times.  I was again like, fuck, great!

And we start!  This is basically a corporate run, so I lined myself as close to the start as I could to prevent any weaving.  I did pretty well at the start.  From the start, the miles felt harder.  I was running by HR like last time, but this time I wanted to push my HR to 180 to see whether I could (last 5K I did my PR at 173bpms).  Anything above 180 usually means asthma attack, so I was watching for any sudden spikes.

Here are my splits.  I think I was pretty consistent throughout.
Mile 1: 7:59
Mile 2: 8:00
Mile 3: 8:05
Mile 0.17: 7:30mm
Time: 25:19 (22 seconds off my PR)

The wind was brutal from the get go.  No matter where we turn, it felt that we were pushing through a wall.  I grabbed a couple of cups of water during the race and threw them over my head.  By Mile 2 I wanted to puke.  Mile 3 was the most brutal.  I could not run faster than 8:20 because the wind near the lake was bad.  I was able to push at the end to finish that mile at 8:05 but I knew my chances of a PR were gone.  I pushed to the end but after passing my PR time, I slowed down a bit and finished.

After the race, I grabbed water, an apple, and went to check the results.  I was 4th in my AG out of 70.  There were 1500 runners and I finished 147.  Although disappointed at first, after analyzing the race, the wind, and the technical course (curves and turns all over), I think I did well.

Unfortunately, third in my AG beat me by 4 seconds.

There are no photos of the event yet, but this is what I wore.  I'm sure I was bright enough for the cameras to get me.

Thanks for reading!

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