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Julie and I conquered the Big Dog 5K this morning! We met up at 8:30 for some much-needed sustenance and coffee from Espresso Royale. After that, we headed over in the early morning chill to the Esplanade. Julie got her very first number for a race, which is very cool. She was 167, I was 168. Not surprising, considering we signed up for the race together.
As usual, we were there entirely too early, so we spent a lot of time scoping out the scene, stretching and listening to Brian Bergeron playing live before the race.
I've never actually run in a race outside of school ones, so this was definitely interesting. This race wasn't seeded at all either (why would it be?), so the first two or three minutes after the gun went off, I spent most of my time trying to navigate past people. It was frustrating because I was running slower than I wanted to for those first few minutes, but that's okay.
My first mile split was 7:23. The distance between mile 1 and mile 2 seemed much further. The last mile and a tenth was definitely the slowest, but I finished 21st for the ladies in 23:49. I stand by my statement that middle school me would have whooped me in this race. Even though this was only a 5K, it made me remember how different running for training runs and running for races is.
I am sure Julie knows this, but her much better (25:13!) 5K time does not appear in a Google search. Yet. I guess we'll have to keep running these things to knock that other time out of the 50 links or so associated with her name.
Tomorrow I'll be setting a personal best at the Big Dog 5K. How do I know this is going to happen? Because I've never run a 5K before so there's really nothing to beat. Whatever I get will be what I get and it will be my PB. I'm not concerned about my time because, after all, I'm not training for a 5K. I'm training for a marathon. But every once in a while it is good to tap into that inner racer, the competitive drive within all of us.
And I'm curious to see how this will affect my Google search results. Like anyone with excessive time on their hands, I'm prone to wasting many a hot minute searching for myself on the Internet. Note: that is not meant to sound philosophical. No. I just like to see the order in which links to my work come up and check in on my newest appearances in other blogs and websites. You're right, I'm truly as arrogant as that sounds. But it's funny because one website that always comes up is titled Paramus 5K Run. It contains the score results from a race in October 2002. And, sure enough, someone with my name competed in that race and clocked in at 45:58. The other Julie was 18 at the time. I was 15, a sophomore in high school.
With any luck, I can set a personal best for the both of us and maybe the results will make it to the Internet. I guess we'll find out, uh, tomorrow.
Here's a note to myself and others: I should follow the definitions of a blog as described in my Reinventing the News class. This means I should do a fair amount of linking, commenting and, you know, actually writing. Frequent updates seem to be a major downfall of mine, so let's work on correcting that.
First and foremost, my right knee is feeling considerably better. This does not mean that it's in perfect condition but I am capable of running without experiencing the pain. And, also important, I can walk without sensing that my knee cap is going to explode. Hard to imagine if you've never endured knee pain, but it was something of the norm last week, particularly while at work. Lots of walking, lots of pain. Proper resting, consistent icing and strengthening exercises have served as a sort of remedy. I also plan to relieve some stress by putting a heavier focus on cross-training, particularly now that my university pool is open.
Last night, Cait and I went to the Fens to do some track-style workouts. Like last time, this included the usual jogging mixed with A-steps, B-steps, the old man shuffle, lunges, etc. and sprinting. We cut the stairs out of our routine for time/motivation purposes, much to my relief, although I did climb to the sixth floor of my building upon returning home. Of course, the Fens track is a popular destination for local athletes, so we had the unusual experience of working out around people who were working out. This created conflicts regarding the sharing of the track. A certain group of local young people chose to form lines, standing side-by-side, and perform their exercises, thus making it impossible to go around them. Other joggers - like the man running infinite laps or the woman with the atrocious form - provided material for commentary. And, most of all, the company of others made me extremely self-conscious during my sprints. Was I running fast enough? What did they think of my runner's face? I guess I need to get used to these things.
Another hilarious point: turns out I thought the 5K was this upcoming Sunday. It's Saturday. Sooner than I thought, but not necessarily a bad thing. I'm unreasonably nervous. Wish us luck!
You already know that I have no internet. Well, now I'm computerless as well because I'm getting my computer's optical drive repaired. As a consequence, I cannot charge my iPod. I'm posting from my alma mater's library, in search of a running route and bracing myself for a 10 mile run that will be music-free. I wonder if I will have the mental toughness to do this without tunes. I know that the big day will be a tune-free zone, but I don't know if I'm quite ready yet.
As Julie had previously mentioned, we both just signed up for Northeastern's Big Dog 5K. It looks like it will be a really fun race, even though I can't quite make out the map of the race route that's on the website.
I love running along the Charles. In fact, on my lunch hour at work, I often run what is known as the Mass Ave loop. Sort of self-explanatory, but it's a just-short-of-4-miles run around the Charles that includes running over the Mass Ave bridge. I usually run it between 12-2, which is of course the hottest time window during the day here.
So, on the agenda for today: making a trip to Marathon Sports and City Sports for some much-needed running apparel, figuring out what our 10 mile route will be tonight and finding a half-marathon to run between the Big Dog 5K and December 2008.
Last night, I went to bed expecting to feel positively abominable this morning. Positively atrocious. So I stretched it out and prepared my mind for the worst. I woke up at 10 a.m. feeling just fine. Well, fine except for the fact that I had just endured a painfully realistic dream that one of my favorite guitarists died (turns out he's still alive and well). Absolutely no part of my body was sore. Not my legs, my arms, my neck, my anything.
This came as a shock because Cait and I worked it pretty hard last night. We ran from Northeastern, up Huntington Avenue and then up Massachusetts Avenue to the Mass Ave bridge where we stretched it out. Despite the brevity of this warm up, my heart rate was still all over the place. I blame the music. Remind me in the future to create a playlist with consistent upbeat jams. We then polished off a run to and from Harvard that clocked in at just under 8 miles total. This is the longest run I have done in quite some time and I paced us for such. I spaced out pretty hard to all of "Kid A" - OK, I skipped "Morning Bell," "Treefingers" and "How to Disappear Completely" - then tapped into the beginning of "In Rainbows." Maybe it's strange that I listen to Radiohead while running, but their music is exactly what I want to hear always so it only makes sense. And "Kid A" has this hypnotizing quality that makes it well-suited for longer runs. It was lovely.
And none of this is to say that I was not exhausted after the run. I certainly was. Cait and I downed some Vitamin Water like it was Jesus, while discussing our workout plan for the week. My legs felt like lead, but most of me was pretty excited to get my exercise on really hard over the next six days. Today is a rest day, despite both of us feeling totally fine after last night. Tomorrow we're going to do a shorter, quicker run and a lot of track exercises. Then I'm going to get up bright and early to see what kind of registration I can do on the marathon's website. I'm not sure if Wednesday's registration is strictly for qualified runners or if it includes those partaking in charity. Regardless, the applications for most of the charities will be released on or around that day so that should start getting exciting.
In other running news, Cait and I are hoping to partake in Northeastern's first "Big Dog 5K" along the Esplanade on September 20. I don't plan to be remotely competetive, since I'm sure there are tons of runners who have been running a lot more frequently and for a lot longer than I have, but I think it should be fun. It's considerably shorter than I'm used to running, which could be interesting or terrible. We'll see.
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