Saturday was another stinking hot day in Ottawa. One of those days that is only enjoyable along side a pool with a daiquari in hand. Instead, I spent my day trying to hydrate myself for my first ever 10k race.
I knew with the humidity factor and a forecasted temperature in the mid 20s overnight, I would need as much excess liquid in my body as possible if I was to finish the race in any sort of "acceptable" time.
Given that it was my first official timed 10k race, my only "real" goal was to finish and to not be the last one across the finish line. But if I am being completely honest with myself, I was really, REALLY hoping to get over that finish line under 1:20.
The race consisted of doing two 5k loops around the Nepean Sportsplex, half of which were on the narrow pathways inside the pines behind the building. All the racers were required to wear a headlamp, and by the time we were done the first 4k, I understood why! Those pathways are really dark. Even with the help of my headlamp and the lanterns/ glow sticks that shone our way, I found myself really uncomfortable in those paths.
My race looked a bit like this:
I arrived at the race, hooked up with Kyla and Lori (who was signed up for the 5k) and hit the registration to get out headlamps then off to the porta poties then straight to the start gates to get started.
Kyla and I ran together and for the first 5k (as per Kyla's Nike+) we stuck to about a 7:20/km pace doing 10:1s. I really wish the race had a split time set up for the 5k, becasue if Kyla's stats were correct, I would have been on par for a PB for the 5k!
At around 5.5k, I was feeling a side cramp and decided to take a bit of a breather and walked for about 2-3 minutes. I took that time to drink a bunch of my drink and cross my fingers that the energy tabs would do their jobs and help me through the last half of the race.
The second time around the route, it got a lot darker and a lot more quiet. All the 5k runners had since come and gone and as we approached the entrance to the trails, darkness seemed to hit really fast.
Although I never felt unsafe, I found my pace got super slow the second time through the forrest. The best way I can describe the feeling is clausterphobic. The extreme dark combined with the narrow pathway surrounded by huge pines made me feel like I didn't have enough "space" around me. I was surprised to learn my reaction to that feeling was to slow instead of to speed up.
Somewhere between the 6 and 7k markers, Kyla said she was going to run the rest of the race without stoping. She felt good and wanted to try to push herslef a bit. I waved her by with a plan of my own. I was going to run each coming kilometer by not stoping until I saw the next marker - allowing myself a quick refresher walk at each marker.
I met up with another runner who offered to run with me. She was struggling to keep any sort of pace and found it helpful to run along side someone else. I feel bad I couldn't be more support for her. She seemed to need a "push" to keep going and I didn't feel I could give it to her. I wanted to finish and I wanted to finish feeling STRONG.
The 3:1s she was sticking with just weren't cutting it for me. Does that make me a bad runner????? I am a bit conflicted - because I left her behind. And when I looked at the finish, she was about 3 minutes behind me, which likely means she walked a good part of the finish. Would she have run better if I would had stayed with her?
I ended up finishing my race at 1:23.01.
I was a pool of sweat as I crossed and I downed the water bottle I was handed in no time flat. I briefly stopped by the "food" tent where they had chocolate mint cliff bars and apples before heading on to the "beer" tent to meet up with Kyla, Lori and get my complimentary beer. Yeah - that tasted good...
...ALMOST as good as finishing my first 10k race. :)
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