Without Oxygen

Preliminary Results for the Human Race 8K in St. Paul:
Name: Dori
Age: 53
Division: F5054
Overall Place: 864 out of 947
Gender Place: 293 out of 353
Division Place: 16 out of 23 (!)
Finish Time: 0:51:44 (A PR!)
Mile Pace: 10:24/mile (NO WAY!)

What a race! This is the 4th year in a row that I've run this race. Last year I set a PR--at 55:07, an 11:05mm pace. At that, I came in second to last for my division. The year before that I ran it in 1:02:02 and again was second to last for my division. That's one tough division!

As you know, I went into the race hoping to PR. What you don't know is that I dedicated this race to a blogger friend whose family is going through a very difficult time. Some of you know who I'm referring to, but I don't want to bring attention to her blog. I'm trying to respect her privacy, even though her blog is public. I'm afraid that it might sensationalize her troubles if I say more.

When I got to the race, the first person I saw was Elle, a young woman I've mentioned before. We first met on the trail, and then we would see each other at various races. We hung out together and wandered around in the field house. I was looking for Don, but I didn't make arrangements beforehand to meet him, so it was a long shot that I would find him. I didn't find him, but I did see other people I knew, including three young women who are just starting to race.

Elle and I walked to the starting line, but first she took my picture. This was her first race of the year; she ran the Twin Cities Marathon last October. As we crossed the start, she said she just wanted to try to come in under an hour. When I told her I was going for a PR, she told me not to let her stop me. I wasn't going to, but I jogged with her for a little bit to keep from going out too fast. That didn't last long!

From about .25 mile to the finish, I ran anaerobically. I took 1 minute walk breaks every nine minutes, but that only slowed my breathing down enough to drink a little bit of sport drink. Since I wasn't wearing a heart-rate monitor, I have no idea what my HR was, but I think I set a new maximum HR for myself.

The weather was predicted to be about 38 degrees, with 19-20 mph winds from the SSE. The race is an out and back; outbound headed east, which means we were running into the wind. At about 1.5 miles, the front runners passed me on their way back. I cheered a little for them, but wanted to save my strength. At one point, two men running together passed me. One was kind of big and I thought, good, I can draft off of him. But then they took a walking break!

Finally, I reached the turn-around point. There was a woman with a goofy headband and a cho-pat around her knee. I would pass her, but then she'd pass me on my walking breaks. The same with the two guys. I'd try to keep my eyes forward and pick out runners in the crowd to catch. It was difficult. After mile 2, I ate a gel. Although I had an excellent banana and pecan pancake for breakfast, it had been several hours since I ate and I figured I could use the glucose.

As I said, I was running anaerobically, which means I sounded like a charging rhino. At one point, I saw a man look over. "Don't worry," I heaved, "I'm not having a heart attack." I was running hard, and it hurt, but I would think about the pain my blogging friend is going through, and suck it up. That's the whole point of a dedication, isn't it?

Of course I was wearing my Garmin, and as I got closer to the finish line, I thought I might finish under 50 minutes, which would be a 10 minute mile average pace. Holy crap! I didn't do that, and I had miscalculated where the finish line would be. I knew it was just past a traffic signal, and as I went through an intersection I thought I was near the end. When I saw another traffic signal on the horizon, my heart sank because it looked a long way off. I convinced myself that it was past the finish line, but it wasn't. "God, give me strength," I prayed.

Then, mercifully, it was over. The Garmin read 51:48, but the race was chip-timed, so 51:44 is what I'm going with! You can imagine how elated I was. As I was removing my chip, I saw one of the two men that I mentioned earlier. I chatted with him for a minute, then I saw my three girlfriends. As I was talking to them, the bigger of the two men came over and said his name. I knew who he was immediately, even though I didn't recognize him. I haven't seen him in about 17 years. He had recognized me, but didn't remember my name. I can't believe he recognized me, since I was only 36 when he last saw me. We caught up briefly and I told him my e-mail address. Hopefully, he'll remember it and write to me. NOTE TO SELF: carry a few cards in the water belt.

Then Elle came in--just under an hour, which was her goal. I went over and high-fived her, then we went inside to get some food. Food! I totally forgot about that. You know I wasn't thinking clearly. I had some unsulphured apricots and a huge slice of whole wheat bread from Great Harvest Bakery--my favorite! We looked up our race results, then hugged goodbye.



I saw my three girlfriends and asked someone to take our picture. SD had my good little camera, so all I had was the cell cam. Even my new cell phone takes crappy pictues, but that may be because I dropped it a couple of times. Then I walked a half-mile to my car and drove over to the gym in St. Paul, where I trained last year for Grandma's Marathon. I couldn't go home because my realtor was holding an Open House, so I took a long, hot shower at the gym.

Here are my splits:
Mile 1: 10:24
Mile 2: 10:25
Mile 3: 10:56
Mile 4: 10:43
Mile 5: 9:16

I especially like that last mile! Part of it was downhill, so I took advantage of the gravity pull, but still, to do a sub 10-minute mile after racing 4 miles is pretty amazing for me. I don't even have times like that for the 5K races. The fastest mile I ever ran was 9:25 and that was for a 1-mile race last April. I am one happy runner. :-)