04.22.06

43:38

Posted in Better Me at 11:05 am by Adriene

I ran my first 5K ever today.

A few weeks ago, Jeff decided he was going to do the Pi Mile at Georgia Tech (yes, we’re geeks. The race is named such because it’s approximately 3.14 miles). He hinted that he thought I should do it, but as usual, I grunted something about only running when big hairy things are chasing me, and kind of blew him off. But, then again, I had been running during the week fairly regularly, so why not? Finally, Jeff enlisted Amy to help, and she finally gave me the nudge to go ahead and register.

Anyway, the race started at 8am, but for some reason, we got it in our heads that we needed to be on campus by 7:00, since that’s when registration started (nevermind that you’ve got a full hour to register between when registration opened and the actual start of the race). So, we left La Casa de Holland around 6:15, and got down to campus at around 6:45. Funny how fast you can drive in Atlanta with no traffic!

To kill some time, Jeff and I wandered around the Student Center at Tech. I hate to say it, but I’ve already become one of those people who shows up on campus and says “Whoa, that wasn’t there when I was here.” I thought that didn’t happen til you hit 40. But anyway, I digress.

The skies were a bit menacing at the start. It had poured here all night prior to the race, but was supposed to clear up sometime this morning. I was hoping it would be earlier this morning rather than later. Unfortunately, it was drizzling at the start. Not too bad, though, I can handle it, I thought.

So, the gun goes off. Sam and Jeff were up toward the middle of the pack, with Amy and me in the back, since a) Amy had the stroller carrying Brianna with her, and b) I’m slow as hell. The first part of the race was darn near deceptive. You start out going downhill. I was like “HEY! This is AWESOME! I’m doing GREAT!”

Then reality hit, and you started running up the hill in front of SAC (or whatever they’re calling it these days - they’ve re-named everything on Tech’s campus. In any case, it’s the big building on West Campus where they had the swimming and diving during the 1996 Olympics). Oy. My body immediately told me I had taken the first part WAY too fast. I had to slow down dramatically. Luckily, if you go UP that hill, you have to go down at some point.

At the bottom of the hill, we were close to the end of mile 1. As we passed the chick who was calling out our times (I’m betting you she was born in 1985. Jeez.), she yelled “11:53!” at me. Huh? I haven’t broken 15 in any of my practice runs! Oh God. I’m in trouble.

About this time, the clouds decided to open up and it started POURING. Great. I’ve totally screwed myself in the first mile, and now it’s raining, I thought. Ain’t this just peachy? But, I decided that well, I’ve already gotten this far, don’t start with that negative attitude crap now.

So, I toughed it out as I ran between the CS building and the CE building. I rounded the corner near where the Textiles building used to be (yet another thing they’ve torn down since I left Tech), and climbed the hill between the Architecture building and Beta. This portion of the course was rather flat, so I decided to give myself a break and walk for a little bit. No need wearing myself out too badly. From there, we went around Peters parking deck (AKA - Pete’s Pool - the bottom level ALWAYS floods) and crossed behind Bobby Dodd Stadium. We were close to the end mile 2.

I passed the guy who was calling out our times at the mile 2 mark, and he yelled “28:54!” at me. Yep. I was losing steam. Oh well, I’m still on a decent pace, I thought. Luckily, I had a break where it was downhill for a portion along North Avenue, so I took advantage of that to make up some time. I decided to rest myself until I hit the final turn, because I wanted to run hard on the last part.

As I rounded the turn from Tech Parkway to Ferst Drive, I picked it up. YAY! It’s downhill. So, I booked it. BAD idea. The final quarter-mile stretch was uphill. Oh well, why not? I kept it up. My legs were burning (funnily enough, I think my cardio outpaces my leg strength now. That’s exactly opposite from a couple of months ago).

I didn’t want to look at the clock. I knew it had to be at 50+ minutes at this point. Oh well, I thought. At least I’ll beat an hour. Grudgingly, I looked up when I had about a tenth of a mile left.

What? That can’t be right. As much as I dropped off between my first and second miles, I had to be a lot slower on the third. However, I guess I was faster than I thought, because as I crossed the line, 43:38 was on the clock.

Wow. I beat my training pace by a LOT. I was just hoping I would finish in under an hour. If I finished under 45 minutes, I’d be ecstatic. I did it! Jeff was at the finish line with Sam and Amy (who crossed about a minute ahead of me) cheering me on. I felt pretty good, being VERY wet aside.

So yeah, that was my first 5K.

Jeff and Me After the Race.

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