Ran Another Race

This morning, I ran in the New Haven Road Race, one of the city's premier athletic events. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but it was still a respectable 29 minutes 45 seconds.


This was, by far, the largest race I've ever been in -- 2536 finishers (plus a bunch more that didn't finish). I finshed 1598th. See preliminary results here -- not yet broken down by category. The results list the clock time, and the net time. Because there are so many runners, we are timed with a chip on our shoe that begins timing for each individual runner as we cross the starting line. So the clock read 31:17 as I cross the finish, but my it took me over a minute to officially start, so my time was 29;45.

This was also the first race I've been in that had a separate tent marked "Elite Runners" -- at the same time as the 5k is a 20k (12.4 miles) that serves as the national 20k championship for the US Track and Field Association. This year's 20k was dedicated to Ryan Shay, who won it in 2004, and who died of a heart attack during the men's Olympic marathon qualifier last fall. There were another 2090 finishers in the 20k. While the two races take off in separate directions, they start in the same place, so there were a whole lot of runners there in that one place.


I had been going back and forth about how I wanted to handle this race -- really go hard and try to get close to my PR? Or take it easy and enjoy the experience of beng in a big race? I kind of hedged and decided I'd just take whatever opportunities came up.


As usual, I started near the back of the pack. That might have been a mistake. It was packed solid for the first mile or so, very hard to pass anyone. Big races like this include lots of first-time racers, people doing it just to try it, little kids, etc. Which is great -- I'm all for people running. But these kinds of runners also tend to go out too hard at first and then die about a half-mile or a mile into it, and start walking, or even stop dead in their tracks, bent over. Which tends to cause pile-ups, near pile-ups, and tripping, as does the lateral zig-zagging that people do when they see a small break in the crowd and try to dash for it before it closes.


So the first mile was slow, as I tried not to fall over anyone or be tripped. For the second mile, things started to spread out slightly, so there was a little more room to pass people. I was feeling pretty good at that point.


But then, about 2.5 miles into it, I just started dying. Maybe it was the hot sun, maybe it was all the sprinting up to that point to pass people in the crowd when a seam opened up. Whatever the case, I struggled for the last part of the race. It was my legs, not my lungs, which is better than the other way around (less worry about that ol' lymphoma-induced fatigue).


Still, it was a respectable time. I'll take it.

Plus, the NHRR gives out awesome shirts -- not cheap cotton, but that nice moisture-wicking material. Sweet. Too bad mine didn't fit.

**************************

Speaking of shirts:

Before the race began, while I was warming up and looking for a short bathroom line, I said Hello to about 15 people wearing purple Team in Training shirts. I told them I was lymphoma patient, and thanked them for what they've been doing for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They all seemed pretty moved; three of them told me I gave them inspiration to run hard in the race.

I'm glad SOMEBODY had a better race than they'd planned......