Chris - 3.1

19:20 - 6:14 pace

Since this was an event for Race for the Cure, I had to leave my house at about 6:15am to drive to Washington Square and catch a bus that was bringing us downtown. To give some perspective as to why they set this up, there's about 40,000+ people who show up to participate in the various walks/runs, which include a timed and untimed 5k, along with a 5k walk and a mile walk.

I met Darren on a corner a couple blocks up from the waterfront to make it much easier to find each other. I had got a bit of my own warm-up in accidentally when I realized that I had forgotten if Taylor St (where I met Darren) was north or south of Morrison Ave. So of course I ended up guessing wrong and running 4 or 5 blocks in the wrong direction. Turned out to be a good thing, since once I met up with him and we jogged down to the waterfront, we realized just how many people were in the way of doing any actual good warming up. He wasn't feeling to great about his chances as it was, since he hadn't been training a lot and he had gone to an Oktoberfest event the night before. So we just found a good spot to stretch and I did a couple strides. We had about 5 minutes left and jogged up to the start. They had one side of the street blocked off by barriers so we had to run around that and then get in between the ribbons with everyone. After I realized just how far back I was and that there was no way I was going to be able to sidle up much farther, I ducked out and went around up to the front, about 5 people back.

The race was a chip-timed, sanctioned USATF event. I got off to my customary fast start with everyone else, and soon settled in to a moderately quick pace behind a group of guys that all had the same t-shirt on. Said "Bosom Buddies" or something. I've learned that this early in the race I really can't gauge who is going to help pull me along/stay in contact with, but even so I tried to guess and kept my eye on this blue shirt guy and a cute short girl that was next to him. Passed the first mile marker at 5:07 and didn't even hit my split because I knew that marker was bullshit. Shortly after that I started to feel the strain and tried to focus on taking quick steps and keeping up with the running buddies. They started to thin out pretty soon after that. So I gave up on them and picked someone else. The hardest part of the route is probably the long, straight finish. It definitely helped to go by Darren after the turnaround and give each other high fives. That gave my legs a big energy boost for a good 10-20 yards. Since this was such a huge event, there were also volunteer groups along the route that were cheering for everyone, which was pretty neat. Passed the 2nd mile mark at 11:53, so that would've been 6:47 for the second mile - and there's no way I slowed down THAT much after the first quick mile. Also per usual, the last mile or so a couple people started to slowly pass me, so I tried my best to pick up my legs a tad more to try and ride their heels. I didn't want to expend the rest of my energy too early though, so I let them go. As we came into the last .5 I started catching up to a couple people that were dying off, and since the finish was along a straight I could see the 3rd mile marker and time my final burst well. I started to really pick up my legs about 50 yards before the marker, and passed a couple people. Then the last .1 I gave everything I had left in the tank, even managed to get up on my toes going into the chute and caught another 3 or 4 people. I had completely forgotten to hit my watch at the 3rd mile marker, so after I hit it at the finish I showed 7:26 for the last 1.1 for a total of 19:19.99! I didn't even look at the official clock as I came into the finish, partly because I knew that was the gun time and partly because my eyes were covered in a haze from trying to kill myself at the end and catch as many people as I could.

I tried to not fall over/pass out as I bent over to unstrap the velcro thing that the timing chip was attached to, and then walked to the end of the line of people to catch my breath and wait for Darren. We high fived as he came to the end of the chute and then went off the find some snacks and water. Since I was mildly curious to see if I had somehow nabbed 2nd in my age group to get an award, I tried asking the people that were holding 'Race Info' signs if they knew where times were going to be posted, but none of them knew anything. One lady's first answer was, "Oh they'll be posted online". Thaaanks lady. We wandered around for a bit longer, then he walked home and I got on my bus to go back to Washington Square. I felt kinda back since I was pretty sweaty and smelly, and everyone else on the bus were normal people that had just come to do the one mile walk with their kids or something. Considering my goal was the break 20, the day was definitely a success!

47th out of 1019, 5th in my age group

Link for the results page