Last week I ran a memorial 5k. The 5k was in memory for a man who was killed overseas while fighting in the war. Both my husband and I wanted to do the race because it was a topic that hit close to home. It was awesome because there were so many service members running the race as well.
The race started at nine which is a little later than I would have preferred. We arrived at the race around 8 and signed up in the VFW. On a random note, last week my husband and I were numbers 311 and 312 and this week we were numbers 313 and 314. In all of my racing I have had 1-2 repeats. Anyways, after signing up, we warmed up along the water
Immediately during warm-up, I could tell how windy the race was going to be. While I didn’t feel like I could PR, I was feeling decent after a hard week of running. You can’t control the weather, and there was no point in dwelling on bad conditions.
We lined up at the start at 9 am. The race was delayed due to longer than anticipated speeches, and we were off by 9:15. At the beginning of the race, I found myself as second women overall and 10-15th person. I recognized the first place women whom I knew was fast. I just focused on my race. During the first mile, I felt decent. I didn’t feel fantastic but I didn’t feel awful. I could feel a little less pep in my legs due to my workout the Wednesday before. I hit the first mile in 6:05.
We turned around during mile 2, and I immediately felt 30 MPH wind. I knew mile 2 would be extremely challenging both mentally and physically. To be honest, it was one of the hardest miles I’ve run in a while. I was running in a dead zone with no one around me. I struggled to make it through mile 2, and I was hard on myself. I was pleasantly surprised when my watch beeped 6:19 because to be honest I wouldn’t have been surprised if it beeped 7 minutes.
Going into the third mile, I saw one person who was about 30 seconds in front of me. At that point of the race, I just wanted it to be done. My goal was to finish around 19:30. Mentally I’ve decided that 19:30 is a solid effort pace for me when I’m untapered. Previously I was consistently running between 20-20:30. Untapered and with the wind, I should be able to do 19:30. The wind made it hard to gain any speed, but I powered through as best as I could. I finished the last mile in 6:15.
I crossed the finish line in 19:30 and 2nd women overall.
Thoughts:
I know I wasn’t in PR condition because of tired legs, but I do know I was in low 19 conditions (since I ran a 19:00 minute 5k the next day). It was a good workout, and it will help me reach my goals. I realized how much I don’t like windy races though.
Questions for you:
How do you mark progress?
I hate windy races. Two years ago at Shamrock was pretty rough for the wind and I think I said many bad words. Sounds like you did well despite the conditions!
I remember that year and I agree…it was so windy!
Rain over wind any day. Wind is just so frustrating! It fluctuates and I feel like I’m running at different efforts within the same minute or just feel off balance. It’s funny because right now we are scheduled to have 50 mph winds today, I will definitely be running inside! I usually mark progress by checking my overall average pace for a month on one of my tracking apps or how a specific pace feels over the course of a few weeks. Great job on your race, you’ve been killing these 5ks!
I am at that point with my running to where I mark my progress by not actually dying…If only I could get that connection right with my mind and my legs and lungs to where they all speak to each other and it’s not just running, running, running, sudden nap on the side of the road.
I’ll take rain over wind anyway. I once read a post by Fernando Cabada that talked about how much effort it takes to run into a headwind and how much that can drain you. It was worse than I had thought. Rain is uncomfortable but a headwind is demoralizing.
They would make sense. I wonder if that was why I was so sore. It would definitely make sense.
Wind sucks to run in! I also hate cycling when it’s windy. You pulled off a pretty impressive race especially considering your tough training week, speedy lady! Congrats!
Wind is the worst! I would take rain over wind any day of the week and twice on Sunday, literally. Well done on your race, you did great 🙂
I always feel as if I’m working ten times harder with wind!
It really is! You have to push harder against the wind so you’re using more energy so I guess it really is more work 🙂
I like that trophy! Congrats again! Wind is definitely one of my least favorite.
congratulations!! Despite the win you still powered through it!!