12th Northgate Downtown Anaheim 5K

Wow. A Snails Pace really represented this past weekend in the 12^th Northgate Downtown Anaheim 5K. Actually, this race attracted A LOT of fast runners in general, very impressive.  Loved it! I ran an 18:32 and was the 9^th female finisher, 3^rd in age group and 41 out of 1231. The winning F finished in 17:19 while the winning M time was 15:03 — talk about crazy fast!

Click HERE for full results.

Anyway, I really wanted to run another race after leaving my  last 5K race uncertain of my real time since the course was cut short (2.85 miles).  I asked my coach if I could give it a shot and she was more than happy to re-work out my schedule for the week so I could squeeze it in. I was really excited to see her show up to the event along with two other teammates Radell and Bill. My boyfriend also decided to be spectator instead of racing so he could support me and act as photographer (thank you Goose).

Now I don’t really know how to set goals for this type of short race right now but I am going to see if eventually I can break 18:00 this year. For this race, I figured I would try to hit a 5:52 pace to finish around an 18:10.  The only stern direction I got from my coach was that I make sure I don’t go out too fast. Noted. She didn’t have to really convince me though, these races are exhausting and the last thing I want to do is hit the wall too early.

Those arms are tired and apparently I am a heel striker.

Anyway, during my typical pre-track/race warm-up, I was feeling fatigued but once the race started, I was just fine.  As the gun went off, I tried to keep an eye on my watch to check my pace. It’s not easy to stay on any kind of pace when you are training faster than you are used to and have to stare at your watch just to make sure you are where you need to be. I tend to find myself looking at it a little too much during races, track and tempos and I actually wear the watch with the bezel at the back of my wrist so I can inconspicuously view it without notice.

I came through the first mile around 5:53 (perfect) and started to feel tired around halfway.  To my surprise my coach was waiting for me at the two mile mark ready to run me in to the finish and keep me on pace. She had started the race with us to do her own personal time trial for two miles and boy was she was flying!  As I saw her I was both happy and worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up my pace.  Luckily she didn’t say much, she just stayed right in front of me hoping I’d try to shadow as I do during track practice. Mentally that helped, it was a common feeling and although I was slowing down, and my arms again felt like dead weight and I knew I might be in trouble when a woman who had been only a few feet in front of me until about 2.5, started to get further ahead without any sort of struggle on my end to prevent it.

I managed to hang on and run the last two miles in 6:03 and 6:05 and was extremely happy to see the finish line and remembered what my coach told me when I had finished: BE PATIENT AND ALWAYS GRATEFUL.

Twenty more days until the next one. I don’t want to think about hitting a goal just yet, I just want to training hard and smart and let my legs carry to the finish.

Radell ran a personal best today! It was always fun to run with him at LA Roadrunners and now I am lucky to run with him while training with Sylvia.

Radell - 17:53 (3rd in AG), Bill - 18:12 (2nd in AG) and me - 18:32 (3rd in AG)

My Athlinks profile. My fastest 5K time was in high school - 14 years ago. OMG, that doesn't sound right but it is! Anyway, I stopped racing in 1999 after injuries, work and boyfriends. It would be awesome to beat that time in my old age!