YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! I get to write a race report again!!!!😍😁

My training has been inconsistent at best. There are some weeks I get in 15 miles with 1 workout and other weeks where I get 0 miles. So, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations, but my Mother’s Day present to myself was to race in person (without the stroller thanks to my mom sacrificing racing herself to watch DD and DS).  Plus, an excuse to go to Cape May and the beach is always good!

My goal was under 24 minutes (nothing like the 21 minutes I ran when I won the race in 2019), and I was partially worried that 24 minutes might not even happen.  I run outside pushing the double stroller typically struggling for 9-10-minutes/mile, and I have “sprinted” a mile on the treadmill a few times in the past two months.  The treadmill sprints have been a struggle to get a them done in 7 minutes, so I pretty much knew anywhere close to 22 minutes was out of the question. 

It was a chilly and windy morning.  Luckily the rain was gone, and the sun had come out, but it was still cold. My car thermometer said 48 and my Garmin says it was 14 MPH winds.  So, definitely not extreme, but cold to me.  I wore a “thick” short-sleeved t-shirt, long pants and my detached sleeves (I love those things). 

For COVID reasons, they planned on starting then 10K at 8:30 and the 5K at 8:40. I stood off to the side while the 10K lined up.  I have to admit, I might have teared up a bit waiting for them to start…It’s been awhile, but this felt “normal.” It was AWESOME! The 10K was off! And the crowd disappeared…wait, what? More then half of the participants were signed up for the 5K, where’d everybody go? I walked up to the line and asked, “was that everyone, or just the 10K?”  The response was that it was everyone with a little attitude, like “why would you ask that?”  Ummm maybe because the last email and the online flyer said 5K was at 8:40, but whatever.  I wasn’t the only one.  There were several people that read the final instructions and did not get the memo that it was changed on race morning. Did the majority of people not read the final instructions, or did I miss the announcement?

I took off “sprinting.” There was a slight incline and some weaving that I didn’t even notice in trying to get back to where I should have been.  Good way to not pay much attention to the first half mile or so at least.  I had no idea what pace I was running (Garmin wasn’t really ready to go), or where I was in the field.  About the time I settled into my pace, a strong-looking woman passed me in bright pink shorts and a tank top (my guess is that she reads instructions and missed the start too).  We were clearly running a race in different weather conditions.😆  I did get a little warm as we did the out-and-back mile, where the wind was at our backs going out, but was quite happy that my skin was covered when we turned back into the head wind. 

There was little to note once I settled into pace.  I may have been passed by one guy. I just kept plugging along at an uncomfortably hard pace.  We turned around and I counted that I was fourth woman – Why didn’t Pink Shorts stay straight for the 10K?  As I said, she looked strong, so I thought she might be going longer.  There was no way I could catch her and although first looked like she was struggling bad, she was too far ahead to do anything about it.  No worries, I had no hopes of placing overall going into the race. Fourth would be amazing!

Maintaining fourth and holding pace as well as possible into the wind was my goal.  I had no idea if anyone was behind me or not and it didn’t really matter.  With about a quarter mile left, you could see the finish arch, and I tried to speed up. That didn’t really work.  There was nobody around to race to the line, so I waved at DD and DS with my mom and crossed the line 23:23! Much faster than my goal and my Garmin (on the wrong settling for viewing, but still captured the data said I went about 0.05 too far), so under 7:30 pace, which makes me very happy!  When I am well-trained, I could have probably placed, or won the race, but that’s the fun of winning – it isn’t easy!  There’s now a goal for next year! 

My mile splits do not look good 7:03, 7:24, 7:49 and 7:40 for the “speed-up” – I’ll blame the wind.  I was running by effort and am clearly under trained for maintaining a pace for 3 miles.

After the race DD rolled around fully clothed in the cold sand and made “sand angels.”  She can’t wait for real beach days!!

Congrats to Pink Shorts on third place! – I was pretty sure I knew who she was but was too out of breath during the race to say anything, and not 100% sure I was right when I was with my family after the race.  Once I saw the results list, I felt bad for not introducing myself – Next time, I will say “hi.”  I am almost completely sure we will run some of the same races in the future.