Last Saturday was the LIMA 5k and I ran it in at a blazing 37:53!
And by blazing I mean of course the temperature of 79 degrees at 9:30m in the morning on an unshaded airport runway, not my running. This was not the most awesome experience ever; but I have learned some things and knowing is, as they say, half the battle.
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| No lasers at the race, but plenty of real Vets and to them I owe thanks. |
Primarily: it's little secret that I am NOT a morning person, but I can usually muddle through to do early morning things if properly motivated. However I think I finally have to accept the reality that morning
races are not for me.
The less sleep I get the less settled my stomach gets, and that is not a recipe for a happy race experience. Add on top of that really bad traffic driving in (
I was 100% sure we were going to miss the race until we were literally in our corral), zero caffeine, too jittery for food, not enough time to properly hydrate, and not bringing my own water I'm kind of amazed I ran as much as I did (
which was probably about three quarters of the race). In the end I was fine and pretty glad I did it, but I suspect that if I had pushed myself any harder I probably would not be.
I have a couple of AM races on the docket over the next several months (
i.e. The Color Run and The Diva Half Marathon)
and I'll figure out how to handle those, but in the interest of my general well being I am going to limit morning races severely in the
future.
As a side note: It was hot, the sun was relentless, and I was not wearing sunscreen. The slight burn I got across my neck and nose seems to have turned into tan, but honestly that was just stupid. Despite my sun loving complexion (
I can get tan looking at pictures of sunny days) I do need to start wearing sunscreen and protecting myself better.
If nothing else I am going to have a heck of a time balancing out the resultant farmer and sock tans!
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| I'm the one that looks just about short enough to pull off a Jawa costume. I also rock neon something fierce. |
I did get to meet up with Gigi of
Running On Candy and some mutual co-workers and friends, and there is a certain satisfaction to having run an entire race (
*cough* and returned home, showered, and eaten)
before I'm normally even up on a Saturday, so I definitely can't say it
was all bad.
It was also pretty darn humbling to think of the people I was there to benefit and the experiences that
they had signed up for. It's hard to get too worked up about how hard you're having it at a 5k when there are uniformed Veterans cheering you on from the sidelines.
Softcup Challenge Winner!
After extensive work to ensure that the results would be random and
fair given the overwhelming response - the winner of the Softcup
Challenge giveaway is...
I wish I had put a bit more thought into things as I actually got to meet Linda briefly after the above mentioned 5k, but sadly my very pale, heat intolerant fiancee (
hint, he's also in the picture above) had just run his first 5k
race and despite appropriate sunscreen was about two steps from immolation by that point, and this was BEFORE the mile or so walk back to the car - so we had to scoot.
Linda: Please email me via gothamcostume at yahoo dot com with your snail mail address and
I will send those out. Alternately let me know if you are running the Color Run or any
of the New York State Parks Summer Run Series races and I will meet up
with you there.
Which is of course a roundabout way of saying FLRRT finally cashed my check and I will be running the
Summer Series! After the LIMA run I think that might be a sure mark of masochism but I'm hoping the fact that they are all evening runs will help.
