JackRabbit Anyone Can Win 5K, April 13, 2010

The JackRabbit Anyone Can Win 5K had the best premise for a race that I've seen yet. No watches. No mile markers. No clocks. Nobody wins at the finish line.

Instead, JackRabbit asked us to predict our finishing times for a 5K when we signed up for the race. The people who got closest to their predicted times would win - not the first people to cross the finish line. And they have some great prizes - JackRabbit gift certificates! Visions of keeping myself in Vanilla Gu all summer long danced through my head.

We also were asked to chip in $20 to keep Prospect Park pretty. Easy enough! I do love me some Prospect Park.

Now. My fastest 5K ever was 25:08, run during a test in the midst of my current Team in Training season. Because it was pitch-black and midwinter at the time of the test, we ran the 5K in a loop around the top half of the park and Prospect Park West. So the course was more or less flat. This race was a full loop around the park, which meant hills. Of the South and North variety.

Also important: I really thought I was going to die during the 5K test. I was getting a cold and could barely breathe. Also, I dropped my glove in the middle and lost about 30 seconds going back and picking it up.

So when I registered for the Anyone Can Win 5K, I based my time not on that test - because I had no desire to feel like that again - but rather on my PR half marathon pace of 9:10. I wrote down 27:30.

TNT BK ran this race in lieu of our normal Tuesday night practice, so it was great to be outside on a pretty night with all my teammates and coaches. It's not often that I get the benefit of my coaches cheering me on during a little 5K race, so that was great.

Know thyself. This was the theme of the night. And I don't. Know myself, that is. Because I ran the 5K in 25:15, possibly a bit faster. That's my 5K PR for an official race, in case you are counting. And also just seven seconds slower than that 5K test. Which I should have written down instead of the slower time, because I'd have won big!

I chalk this up to what every coach, every experienced runner, every race veteran will tell you: Don't go out too fast. To which I say: Then don't start your races on a downhill.

In sum, I'm pretty proud of myself for my PR - it was just about 8 months ago, in August of 2009, in Prospect Park, in a race sponsored by JackRabbit, that I ran my first 5K in under 30 minutes. So I've shaved off over four minutes in one training season, in a distance I really don't enjoy that much (I could go on and on about this, but I'll keep it short and just say that a 5K is a warmup for me.).

I just really wanted that gift certificate! Time to get serious about pacing. And get to know myself a bit better - because apparently I really can run a 5K in 25 minutes and change.

NYRR Fred Lebow Classic 5-Mile, January 9, 2010

That's me, way over on the right with my foot going out of frame. I sacrificed a fair amount of warmth to sport some Team in Training Gear and have my number out prominently during this race, and this is the treatment I get from Brightroom. Hmph.

So there's no photographic proof, but there is proof in the form of numbers. And those numbers show I kicked some major ass in this race. Five miles in 43:40. What those numbers don't show you, and only my new watch (Timex Ironman, a Christmas present from my wonderful dad) showed me, was that I ran negative splits the whole way - and finished with a 7:46 final mile. Kick. Ass.

Did I mention it was about 20 degrees, less with the windchill, at the start? It was cold. Very, very cold. I had to talk to a friend for a few miles just to keep my face from going numb. However, my best races tend to happen in weather like this - I fade quickly in heat.

I started this blog last year with the goal of becoming a runner, as opposed to someone who signed up to do a half marathon and felt compelled to follow through. In the last year I ran a marathon, two half marathons and qualified for the 2010 New York City Marathon by running nine New York Road Runners qualifying races and volunteering at a 10th - another goal I set out to chronicle here. Running my marathon was really hard. I didn't love all of those qualifying races. But I did become a runner. I go out for runs now and it's no longer a struggle. It's become something I have to do, a part of me. I was away from the city over the holidays for three weeks, and while I was gone I made an effort to run regularly, in places both familiar and un-. I found a playground that time forgot near my grandmother's house and discovered that hill training pays off when running in my parents' neighborhood (at one point I found myself running perpendicular to a hill).

Team in Training reeled me in again this year. I signed up to run the Long Branch Half Marathon in New Jersey on May 2 with them, as a way of beginning my training for NYC. They asked me to serve as a mentor captain, which was an honor, and I'm enjoying the challenge of keeping my fellow mentors plugged in. I'll probably follow this season with the fall one and train with them for NYC. There's not enough space on this blog to talk in detail about how much the TNT family has given me, but suffice it to say I owe them a lot more than my fitness, and a lot more than I would likely fundraise even if I participated in every season for the rest of my running-able life.

2009 was one of the most difficult years of my life, personally. I dealt with a salary cut and layoffs at work, lost my grandmother, miscarried twice, struggled with a lot of Deep Thoughts and overall spent the year wondering what, exactly, I had done to deserve such a karmic blow. It was a year of loss. Running kept me sane (well, that's a questionable word - perhaps "balanced" is better) through it all. Remembering that I set goals to improve my speed, my times, my race performances and to qualify for that marathon kept me going. I owe many people - coaches, running partners, friends and family - lots of thanks for getting me through, and here's to a better 2010.

TNT BK Practice, February 3, 2009

Tonight I ran uphill in the snow both ways.

And I liked it.

To be fair, the hill wasn't as steep as the one we were supposed to run -- we were supposed to do repeats on the North Hill. But because it's been snowing all day and the path wasn't plowed, we just ran quarter-mile repeats along the west side of the Prospect Park loop, where there are small rolling hills. They didn't seem so bad at first but the last couple were hard for me, with the packed snow and occasionally slick conditions adding an extra challenge. But! I was feeling really STRONG all night. I am not much of a sprinter -- I vastly prefer a long, slower run to short fast distances. Yet tonight I was really one with my sprints. I know that sounds cheesy but it was a huge breakthrough for me.

And it was nice to have that breakthrough on a pretty snowy night. The park looked sort of otherworldly. I never thought I'd be someone who not only exercised outdoors in the snow but liked it. Yet somehow, here I am.