In 2023 I really wanted to run a September 5k and came across the Run the Rails 5k, read about the race here. Now I get an automated email inviting me to sign up again each year. When I got the email this year, I thought, that actually sounds pretty awesome. I waited until the week of the race to make sure I still wanted to run the race and then signed up. I knew it meant getting up at 6am on a Saturday which I hated the thought of a little bit, but I knew it would be worth it. I ran 7:00 pace for the Stars & Stripes 5k on July 4th so my goal was to run under 7:00 pace and finish in under 22 minutes again. I thought I was in better shape than I had been in early July, but I also had the flu at the end of July so knew I probably lost a bit of fitness during that and coming back after. So I thought running just a bit faster than I had on July 4th was a reasonable goal. I got up at 6am the morning of the race. I did a short yoga video, made coffee and plain oatmeal, and left the house a little after 6:30 since the race was 30 minutes away. I ate as much oatmeal as I could on the drive which was about half the bowl and drank my coffee. I arrived a little after 7:00 which should have been plenty of time to pick up my bib and run a mile warm up, but they only had one person manning the table. They were doing pre-registered and runners who needed to register all in one line so I was having to wait for people in front of me to fill out the form to register. It took around 15 minutes for me to finally get my bib and take off on my warm up. I knew I had 10 minutes which was plenty of time to run a mile warm up. During my warm up, I realized this would be my first race as a 40 year old and I was really excited about that! I didn't feel very good on my run on Friday, but I felt awesome on my warm up and was hopeful it would be a good race. I ran a couple strides in the last part of my mile. I stopped off at Casey's gas station to use the bathroom and didn't think about that until I was almost back to the race start. When I thought about the added time of stopping at the bathroom, I knew I was going to be cutting it close to the start. I got to the starting area as he was saying, "I will say runners set and then blow the horn." I saved my warm up, started a new run, stepped onto the path, and then the horn blew. This was the closest I've ever been to missing the start of a race without actually missing the start!
We took off and it felt really fast but I also felt really strong. The year I ran this race I won it overall male or female in 21:20. The next year the overall winner ran 21:30 and last year the winner was 23 minutes. I saw on the website that they were offering discounted race entry to runners on the cross country team so I was hopeful it would be more competitive this year. I would rather not be a top overall finishers and have people to run against than win and basically be in a time trial alone. It definitely was more competitive this year, I took off and had multiple females ahead of me as well as I'd say at least 20 males. The race ran in the opposite direction from the year I ran it before. So before it was a slight incline on the way out and a slight decline on the way back. This year was the opposite so we started with a decline and finished with an incline. It made the race start fast and the finish hurt more. By the first mile I was in 2nd female and the 1st female had a very large lead and appeared to be cruising. I ran my first mile in 6:36 which really surprised me. I knew that was way under my goal and started wondering what pace was sub-21. It took me a while, but I eventually remembered that sub-21 was 6:45 pace. I knew I was 9 seconds under pace and I was really excited. I told myself to hold steady to the halfway point and try to pick it up after we turned around. I passed a few guys in here. When the girl in first ran back by after the turn around, I cheered for her and she looked really strong. She had a very sizeable lead so I focused on just chipping away at the lead a little bit. I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch her.
I went through the 2nd mile in 6:46. I told myself I was still 8 seconds under pace so I just needed to run the last mile in 6:53 or under. I had passed all the men close to me and was definitely starting to feel fatigued. There was a high school aged boy I passed and, at first, he started to go with me. I was excited, thinking I'd have someone to push me to the finish, but he quickly fell back off pace and I didn't see him again during the race. I told myself to run based off feel and not look at my watch. When I finally did, I had 2/10ths of a mile to go and I was averaging 6:50 pace for the last mile. I told myself it was go time and every second I could drop my pace was a second under 21:00. I went through the 3rd mile in 6:48 and told myself I still had a 5 second cushion and I needed to push. I pushed as hard as I could and as I neared the finish line, I saw the clock was really close to 21:00. It ticked over to 21:00 right before I reached it and I hoped my chip time was under. When I saved my run on my watch and looked, it said 21:01 so I knew I just barely missed it unless they had my chip time a smidge faster. I ran my last 0.13 in 6:23 pace and Strava has my 5k at 20:54. I know in the grand scheme of things, what difference does a second make? But now I'm itching a little bit to run another 5k to get under 21:00. I think my next one won't be until the Turkey Trot thought. I was 15th out of 85 overall, 2nd overall female, and 1st out of 12 in my age group.
