I have secured my first PR of the year and first PR as a master’s runner!
I have never ran a one mile race, so technically it was an automatic PR. But I’m still happy with how the Raspberry Run this last Sunday went, and I can feel my speed coming back. If all goes well, I think I’ll be able to set a couple PRs this fall!
Since this was a one mile race, and I ran less than 6 minutes, this is going to be a pretty short recap. (There’s not too much time to think when you are focused on purely running as fast as possible.)
I arrived about 90 minutes before the race started, so I got my bib and did a little work before warming up. Since I have never done this race before, I orientated myself with the race course and found the start of the race. I ran some of the course and saw a big banner draped across the road a ways down the street and figured that was the finish. (This is called foreshadowing, and spoiler alert it was not the finish.)
I did a two mile warm-up, saw my coach and talked to her for a bit, and then changed into my racing shoes. This was the first time wearing the New Balance SC Comp Elite, and I LOVED them. (The one small minor annoyance is that the shoe hits my lateral malleolous bone–that’s your ankle bone on the lateral (outside) part of your foot–in an uncomfortably way. I feel it when I run, but so far it hasn’t caused an chafing or an open wound. For this one mile race, I was fine, but I wonder what they will feel like in a longer race.
Anyway, at the start, I found a friend who I have connected with on social media over the last five years and also saw Dakotah Lindwurm warming-up. I knew this race drew a lot of fast people because it is part of the USATF race circuit in Minnesota, but I wasn’t expecting a pro! (I also saw Annie Frisbie at the end but she didn’t run.)
I knew the start was going to be crowded but it was even more crowded than I anticipated. I was probably five or six rows back from the start, and I barely had any room. I was worried about my position at the start because oddly this race is only timed on gun time, so there is no timing mat at the start. I’ve talked to several people, but no one seems to know why this is. We know USATF official times are based off gun time, but I’m not sure why they still couldn’t have chip time. Anyway, I was glad I knew this, so I made sure to get my chip time on my watch because I would have the gun time in the official results.
When the gun went off, it took me about five seconds to cross the start line (I didn’t know that until afterwards as I only looked at my watch once during the race.) I got off the line and immediately had a herd of people right in front of me running slower than I was, and I thought, “Well, there goes my opportunity to run fast.” But within about 10 seconds things, opened up, and I had a clear area to run. (I think it also helped that I was on the edge of the street, so I was able to run without having to weave around people.)
I was feeling good and strong and had a lot a good knee drive (thanks to my strength coach for helping me get so strong!) in the first quarter of a mile. Then, up ahead, I could see that banner draped across the road and just focused on that and getting there as soon as I could.
As I was approaching the banner, I was curious to know what my pace was, so I quickly glanced at my current pace and saw 5:15 min/mi. Woah, I thought–I’m feeling good, and I’m almost done. In that same glance, I also snuck a peak at the distance and saw 0.65 mile. Seriously?! Ugh! The banner was NOT the finish. I thought to myself, “This last 0.35 is going to be brutal.” I had to slow down just a bit because there was no way I could maintain this pace for another 0.35 mile. But you can see exactly where I hit the wall in this pace graph from my watch. Ha!
I don’t know how much I exactly slowed down (I never peaked at my watch again.), but I found the real finish and just worked on getting there as quickly as I could. My watch beeped for the one mile a split second before I crossed the finish line, and then I stopped it for an unofficial chip time of 5:25! YES!!!
Going into the race, I was pretty optimistic I could run a 5:30, and I thought if I had a really good day, I could be closer to 5:20. So splitting the difference was definitely a time I am really happy with and proud of.
The race is very competitive, and I finished 21st for the women and 4th in my age group. And to put it into perspective how competitive the race is, I was 137th out of 551 people (men and women)! So crazy!
My next race is the Tracksmith 5000 on July 26th. I have heard great things about the event, but it is supposed to be a high of 98*F that day! So long to any chance of PRing. Oh well!
