Bill Morefield My thoughts, discoveries, and occasional rambiings.

July 29, 2013

Running 3.1 Miles (Or My First 5K)

Filed under: health — Tags: , , — Bill Morefield @ 9:23 am

I used to have a motto that it was pointless to run unless being chased. Thankfully I’ve rarely found myself in a position where I needed to run for safety and therefore rarely ran unless caught in the rain.

I’ve already noted the weight and exercise changes I’ve made over the last couple of years, but running is a pretty new experience. I spent most of the spring training for a backpacking trip planned for June out west. That meant lots of long hikes in hilly terrain worried about distance and not time. I did several hikes of as much as ten miles, but rarely worried about a pace greater than a steady walk.

The backpacking trip didn’t quite go as planned and now will take place in early November. Shortly before that fell apart though I had decided I needed something to work toward once I came back. I was looking at coming back in mid June with the main goal I’d held for my spring gone.

Why I decided to try running I do not know, but somehow it felt like a change of pace. Shorter distances in faster time which sort of flipped what I’d been doing. I figured given the condition I was in I could train about six weeks and have a decent result so I looked for something around the end of July and found it in the Bele Chere 5K in Asheville, NC.

Then shortly afterward June happened. The trip fell apart on me at the last minute. And shortly after I got back from it my father had an accident at work breaking his hip. Several weeks of hospital and rehab for him followed and my training time was the victim. I trained, but not as many days as I’d hoped. I got what I could in, but my goal went to simply finishing. I felt I could walk ten miles without a break still, I worried about being the last person to finish just over three.

Bele Chere was a festival held in downtown Asheville at the end of July that everyone in the city seems to either love or hate. No, the locals I know mostly either hated or ignored it. I use the past tense as it appears this year’s was the last one. I heard more love than most years this time perhaps for that reason. Interestingly I’ve been in the city the last three years during the festival, but this was my only time actually going to it.

I get downtown early. It’s early morning in Asheville and I’m walking around Pack Square park warming up mostly by just walking. My test 5K shortly before the race had been run when I was really tired and a bit under the weather, but my time had been terrible. My goal as I walk around the park next to the start and finish areas is to finish at a pace of twelve minutes per mile or a bit over 37 minutes for the race.

It’s been a cloudy morning and drizzly. The night before had scattered some rain around the city. The calls are for us to start to gather around the start/finish line. I settl toward the back of the middle of the pack figuring it’s about the right spot for me on my pace. Shortly after getting there a noticeable flash occurs in the sky. A lot of cameras have been in use, but this ain’t that. The thunder a bit later confirms this. I take a moment to enjoy the irony that coming over the speakers is AC/DC’s Thunderstruck before wondering how they handle thunderstorms.

Lightning flashes a couple more times in the ten minutes or so before the start. Only the last is close enough to be concerning, but it’s not repeated. What does follow though is a downpour of rain a couple of minutes before the 7:30 A.M. start time.

There are almost 1,200 people there at the race start. I work through the largely empty streets of downtown. I’d had the luck and foresight to wear a cap, but even before I cross the start line it, along with my pants and shirt, are soaked to the skin. It’s a cool morning for July, but the movement means I never feel chilled.

The rain last probably the first five minutes of the race. Water runs down the street and there are puddles everywhere the asphalt dips even slightly. My socks get soaked along the way and I’ve no idea if the splash that did it came from me or another running hitting a puddle.

At the same time the race feels like it takes forever, and seems over in minutes. I cross the finish line 37:03 after the starting gun putting me 941 out of 1,177 people listed on the results site this evening. My official time from start line to finish lines of 36:32 matches my own tracking pretty closely for a pace of 11:56 per mile.

I’m not happy with the time, but already see how to improve. More training of course would have helped, I had to walk an uphill section around the two mile mark that likely cost me at least a minute off my time and I lost probably another minute dealing with my shoe laces. I’d not tired them well and had to stop and retie both along the way.

So the question then is will I do it again? Probably so. I’m looking to train better now that life has gotten a bit less crazy and would like to hit something around thirty minutes for a time. When I don’t know, but I’ll probably start looking at area races toward end of August or into September. Be interesting to see what progress I can make in between.

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