Miles for Milestones 5k

Last year we ran the Fun Run at the Miles for Milestones event supporting The Little Lighthouse. The director of the preschool I worked at is now the director there and texted me to invite me to run the race. So, of course, we had to participate! I was focused on preparing for the Houston Marathon and getting long runs in so I didn't run the race, but signed up for the Fun Run to run with Elise. It was the first year so it was a smaller event. Elise was super proud that she won the Fun Run. This year I had a 3 mile tempo run scheduled the weekend of the race so it was perfect timing for a 5k. I'm starting to feel a bit more in shape after the months of low-mileage weeks following Grandma's, thanks to bone spurs in the heel/ankle area of my foot. I think it's as resolved as it is going to get, but I'm hopeful I may be able to run without pain again at some point. It's not terrible pain, but there is definitely discomfort in that area throughout my runs and a fair amount of swelling and discomfort after runs.

The 5k started at 8:40 and the fun run started at 8:45 so I wasn't able to run the fun run with Elise this year. Ty said she was a bit nervous and walked with him for a while before taking off running. Carter said when she started running, she was zooming past people. He said people were talking about how fast she was and were guessing she would slow down, but she never did. She finished in 9:40 which wasn't that much slower than last year considering she walked about 1/10th of a mile at the start. When she finished, she stood by the finish line to cheer on other runners. It was so sweet to hear her cheering for me as I finished!

Ty got a picture of Elise after the turn around.

Friday evening I had a pizza party after school for my students from last year who read over the summer. I was so exhausted by the time I got home, I could barely stay awake. I set an alarm for 7:30am just in case we all slept in and we did! I wanted to do a pre-run yoga video to stretch out my heel and ankle in hopes that would help with my bone spur pain during the race. I was a bit nervous because I wasn't sure how things would feel and the Firecracker 5k, which was my most recent race, was so painful! We didn't get to the race as early as I would have liked so I only had time for a mile warm up. Carter wanted to run it with me and I couldn't talk him out of it, so I ended up only doing 0.9 miles. I got to the start area as they were starting to count down and didn't see any fast looking women toward the front so I went ahead and worked my way up to the front and we were off. My watch didn't start when I pressed it so I was looking down to see if it started when I pushed it again and didn't see there was a camera person staged in the middle of the path and I ran straight into her. I apologized profusely and was so embarrassed. All the runners around me were saying, "What was she doing in the middle of the path," and "What was she doing there," so that made me feel a little bit better. According to the difference in my first mile split from Garmin to Strava (since Strava cuts out time not moving), that incident cost me 7 seconds! I never would have guessed I lost that much time.

I passed a lot of men right away in the first half-mile of the race. When we made it up the path and toward a bridge that crosses over to the east side of the river, I was disappointed that we were going under the bridge. When you go under the bridge, you run on a bridge underneath the road and Garmins lose satellites there. I ran my PR half-marathon on a course that went under the bridge so it didn't read as the half-marathon distance on my Garmin and Strava even though it was a certified course, which annoys me! The loss of satellites adds up to a little over 1/10th of a mile. I didn't care about that as much as I did realizing I wouldn't know what my first mile split was since by the time my watch would register a mile, I'd already have run over a mile. Coming back from an injury and this being my first race, I really felt like I needed my splits to help me know what I was doing. Maybe it was actually better because I ran by feel more than pace, but it would be a nice baseline to know where I am. Going into the bridge area I was running sub-7:00 pace and under the bridge when I looked, it was reading all kinds of craziness like 11:00 pace since my time was still going, but the satellites weren't registering any distance being added. My first mile split went off in 7:15 and I told myself that was better than the Firecracker 5k and that mile split wasn't even correct!

When I made it to the halfway point I was at 10:50 so I knew I was on pace for around 21:40. I was really excited about that! I knew I could turn around and push on the way back. At that point I saw how far I was ahead of the person closest behind me and I knew my watch wasn't going to register the mile splits correctly so it was a little bit hard to keep pushing, but I just kept my eyes on the guy ahead of me and worked on reeling him in. I was pleased that after the first portion of the race, I wasn't feeling any pain where I typically have been! My 2nd mile split was 7:07 and then I took off for the last mile. We went uphill to come out of the area under the bridge and I really took off. When I made it to the Fun Run turn around, I started passing fun runners who were still out on the course. Around in there I passed the guy ahead of me. I started thinking about what the finishing time would be for the fun runners and figured if they started 5 minutes after us, they would be finishing in around 16 minutes. Then I saw Carter and Ty walking as I got fairly close to the finish line and cheered for them. Carter started telling Ty they were going to get beat by someone in the 5k. As I neared the finish line I heard Elise cheering for me and saw her standing right by the finish line! I saw the clock was around 21:30 and was pleased with my time. 

I finished in 21:42. My Garmin registered 2.97. With the loss of satellites under the bridge, it should be right around 3.1 although I'm not sure what the distance actually was. 21:42 would be 6:59 pace and while I think it is possible I averaged that pace, I'm not sure I really ran miles 1 and 3 fast enough to average that with a 7:07 middle mile. I know after I ran into the camera woman I got a burst of adrenaline and for a while when I looked down at my pace, it was 6:20, so maybe I did run my first mile fast enough to off set a 7:07 second mile, who knows! I'm a bit disappointed I don't have a great idea of what my actual time was since the distance is uncertain. The 10k did have a certified course and it measured 6.1 on my friend's watch who ran it, so I'd say it is safe to say going under the bridge effected the race distance by about 1/10th of a mile, just like it has with every other race I've run that followed that course. The uncertainty of what my time would be for 3.1 made me want to run another 5k which is something I haven't wanted to do in a long time, so I guess that's a plus! I was 5th out of 157 overall and 1st out of 96 women. Elise was 14th out of 137 in the fun run, 7th female, and 3rd in the 0-19 age group. Both the girls ahead of her in her age group were 15 years old. Carter finished in 17:37 which was 68th overall and 17th in his age group. Ty turned around early and decided not to cross the finish line because of that. Later he joked about it being his first DNF. We all enjoyed the race and want to make it a yearly tradition. Hopefully next year I'll be in good enough shape to run the 10k!