Breaking Barriers 5k

I was disappointed in my race at the Firecracker 5k. The effort level felt more like a tempo than a race, but I just couldn't get my legs going! Based on my workouts and fitness level, I thought I was in shape to run under 22 minutes. I really wanted to run another race to redeem myself. The Breaking Barriers 5k had been on my radar for a while because it is sponsored by Runners World Tulsa and I figured I'd get free entry through the race team. When I got my code for free entry I immediately signed up. The race start was at 7:30 and I must not have looked closely and just assumed it was in the morning. Friday morning, the day before the race, I happened to see a post one of the owners of Runners World made telling people to come run "this fun evening race". I panicked and checked the race website, sure enough the race start was 7:30pm! We'd had decently cool weather to start the week off, but it had gotten really warm by Wednesday and the highs were in the 100's all week. I was immediately disappointed and didn't want to run the race. There were some significant life events going on with people I'm really close to and I was feeling a lot of stress and anxiety. I woke up Saturday morning feeling a low level of depression and wasn't sure the race was a good idea. When I'm feeling a lot of emotional stress, I tend to not race very well. I decided to just see how I felt as the day progressed, hoping I would feel better.

With April after the race.

By evening I was committed to running the race. I figured I hadn't run yet and, if I was going to run in the heat, I might as well run with other people. I didn't check the temperature or the feels like temperature before the race because I didn't want to know, but the high for the day was over 100 degrees, so it was very hot! I still really wanted to run under 22 minutes. I figured since the race was fully paved rather than partially on grass like the Firecracker 5k, I would have an edge. I was also wearing KT tape which was helping me a lot on my runs so I was hoping it would help in the race. I saw my friend April when I went to get my race bib and started actually getting excited for the race. I did a mile warm up just to stretch out my injury area. I hated to run before the race because it was so hot. I was sweating just standing there! I struggled at the Firecracker 5k because I got off the start poorly and then struggled to get down to pace. Because of that I really wanted to get off the start well for this race. I saw a couple other women on the race team and knew I for sure wasn't going to win the race and would need to battle to be top 3 in my current state of fitness. 

During the first mile of the race.

We took off and the start through the parking lot was all downhill. It made for a fast start! There were 2 girls ahead of me and my goal was to stay close enough to the girl in 2nd to contend with her during the 2nd half of the race. I knew the girl out in front was going to smoke me and figured she'd be sub-20. My mouth was immediately so dry which is one of my strongest memories from the start of the race. Ty and the kids walked down to our friend's house which is right by the trail we would run on. When I went through, they cheered for me, which was fun. I saw them around a half-mile or mile into the race. A woman passed me as we went through there and I was surprised to see it was a woman who has never been close to me in a race. She was running so strongly, I convinced myself she must not be who I thought she was. Spoiler alert, it was who I thought it was and she ran a 5k PR somehow! I knew I got out faster than my last 5k but was shocked when I went through the first mile in 6:20. At first I got really excited thinking my KT tape had worked miracles, but then I thought about it and realized the first mile must have been all downhill. I knew that meant the last mile was going to suck!

This was definitely mostly a flat course, but the elevation profile is a great excuse for my terrible pacing and last mile split!

A bit after the mile mark I passed the girl who had been running in 2nd and the lady who passed me powered away from me. At first I figured I'd go with her, but with how fast my first mile was, I was worried to push too much during the 2nd mile. I was feeling really good at the turn around point and then we hit the uphill to the finish. In a longer race and possibly with a slower first mile, I doubt I would have noticed it that much, but in this race with that first mile on my legs, I was dying. I was also so hot. It really hit me in the 2nd half of the race and particularly during the last mile. My 2nd mile was 7:01 which was exactly the pace I had been hoping for. I told myself I had a 40 second buffer from that first mile so I just needed to run my last mile in under 7:40 which I knew I could do. I decided to shoot for sub-7:30. My legs were dead and were really feeling the uphill finish. I went through the last mile in 7:29 and then my finishing kick was 7:07 pace which sounds really bad, but it was uphill so I'm not knocking it! I finished and felt light headed, I think because I was so hot. I jogged a cool down and felt a little better after it. 

My finishing time was 21:47. I was 14th out of 122 overall and 3rd out of 75 women. I wasn't thrilled with my pacing, but given the conditions and seeing everyone else's mile splits, I will allow it. There's another 5k this weekend and I'm so tempted to run it because it's in the morning. Going from a course with part of the race in grass to fully paved, I was able to drop 40 seconds. I'm tempted to see if I could drop more time going from an evening race to a morning race, especially because this weekend at race time is supposed to be 74 degrees. That would be at least a 20 degree difference in temperature from my evening race! I just think that would be too much stress on my bone spurs to run 5ks 3 weekends in a row. Being around the running community and with friends was just what I needed. I felt so much better when I got home than I had when I left for the race so that in itself was a success!