Steve - 5.75

I conquered the bridge this morning. More accurately, I survived the bridge. My 5 mile race took place on the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, California. I thought I was well prepared to best my PR from the one year of cross country that I ran in school. But those hopes faded away roughly a mile into the race when I realized the Bridge was very hilly! In fact, we started on an uphill stretch on the bridge. So of course that meant there would be a downhill portion on the bridge, but when you're not used to running hills it sucks. You lose more time on the uphill than you gain on the downhill. I pretty much never run hills because there aren't a whole lot near where I live and because of that bad experience I had running the sand dunes a few months back where I messed up my Achilles pretty bad. It's still not 100 percent, but its just one of those things that never goes away when you run a lot I guess. In any case, that first uphill stretch took a lot out of me. By the time I got to the downhill and steeper part of the bridge, I was feeling much better. The downhill portion was shorter but steeper, so I tried to take advantage as best as I could. I got to the turnaround point at 18:09. There is a relatively flat portion that we ran on before entering the bridge again and heading up the steep portion. I really started losing gas at this point. My stride got short and people were passing me. One dumbass with a camera taking photos even passed me. Granted, it was a small digital camera, but still. Nearing the end of the uphill portion, I started feeling better. I started reeling in people again and passed several runners. As we got to the flat section before the downhall, I passed that idiot with the camera. Looked like he was dying. Heard some walkers going out saying something about someone behind me being the second girl. More on that later. I started to hit my stride (pun intended) in the downhill and committed myself to a hard effort the rest of the way. Passed a few more runners as we approached the end of the bridge. To finish the course, we had to go another .6 miles or so on city streets. As we got off the bridge, I really wanted the race to be over. I started losing it again and a few runners pulled ahead of me. With several blocks remaining, I wasn't feeling good. But I reached down and found some untapped reserves and picked it up again. With about 400 meters left, that sneaky girl crept up on me and passed me. Well being the competitive asshole that I am, I wouldn't allow that. I let her go for a few seconds and then reeled her and finished strong, putting a good 4-5 seconds on her. Quite content with myself I was, but it was her who would have the last laugh. When I looked at the results, her chip time was actually faster because she started behind me...Final time was 36:33. The winning time was only 30 something, so it either was a tough course or no one fast was in it. Suffice to say, I was nowhere close to my PR of 32:03...