I seem to be perpetually behind in posting about events ... but a Happy Belated Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there!
How did I spend my mother's day? In "pre-brunch training" ... for the third year in a row, I finished the
Mother's Day Title 9K, hosted by the lovely
Title 9 store in Boulder, CO. The past two years I've walked, with a PR (Personal Record) of about 1:45. (It
was walking, after all.) This year, I decided to run, and started training in earnest in March. (You know this if you've been reading my blog.) This was, I'll note, my very first experience running in a race!
How did it go? It was a
great experience. I've spent the last three weekends running about 6 miles per Sunday, so I felt like this 9K, about 5.5 miles, would just be an extension of those runs ... it was in fact so much more.
Because I've been reading running books like they're about to be yanked off the shelves of my library (my fifth just read was John Bingham and Jenny Hadfield's
Marathoning for Mortals, a basic how-to guide on the half-marathon and full marathon), I'd designed a specific "race strategy" for the day ... it went like this: start at the back of the running pack, hold a steady pace until I made it up the two significant hills and hit the halfway mark, then start "picking off" runners ahead of me while increasing my pace.
I was lucky enough that Amy (of "knit-it-yourself", a blog on hiatus) came by and drove with me to the race. Having just given birth a short three months ago (give her a hand, everyone, for making it out!), she was going to walk the course. So, we hung out together with her in the front ranks of the walkers and me in the back ranks of the runners.
9:00 AM struck, the race started, and I took off. I should have mentioned that this was an all-women's event ... so I found it odd when I saw that there was a hot, superfit Boulder kind of guy running in front of me. How did he make it in?, I thought. Then I realized that he was pacing his mother ... a lady in her 70's probably, tall with all-gray hair, and I thought -- wow! What a great son ... I could only hope that my grown children would do something like this with me when I'm that age. Not only was I inspired by the two of them (and, okay, I'll admit it -- the view wasn't bad), but they also were already passing a lot of the 11-minute milers that were running, and so I decided to stick right behind them and I followed them to the "2" mark.
(Note to self: don't read numbers while you're running.) I of course hit the "2" and thought, Wow! Already two miles down and only 3 and 1/2 to go! We hit the first aid station after that, and I slowed to a walk for the first time, feeling really good.
I next found two runners to follow ... they seemed to be holding up well, they had a good pace passing a few people, and they were easy for me to focus on. When we passed the "3" mark, I heard one say ... "Great! It's 9:23 and only 6 more to go!" This of course totally confused me ... until I realized my mistake. The markers were of course for kilometers, as this was a 9-Kilometer race.
(Note to self: don't do any quick math, either.) I did some quick math, and realized that if it took me 23 minutes to get through three kilometers, then it would take me 72 minutes to get to the end. And, because I have a habit of fixating on random goals, I was sort of hoping to finish the 9K in under an hour ... so it didn't seem like that was going to happen.
Rather than being bummed out, though, I kept up my pace until I hit both hills, and once I felt significantly recovered from that, I started creeping up my pace. At this point in my "weekend runs", I think that I've been slowing down ... but in the 9K, as I was looking at my time, I sped up ... and it was just
such a different experience. Note that when I say "sped up", I still noticed that there were moms with joggers passing me ... 8-months-pregnant women ahead of me (wow!) ... 11-year-olds with a vendetta to prove against their moms passing me ... so "sped up" was really just relative to
my usual running.
When I hit the 6K mark, I asked somebody the time (note to self: bring watch next time!), and it was 9:46. I had 14 minutes left, and 3K to cover ... I wondered if it'd be possible to finish in an hour after all! So, I stepped up my pace even more, and as I came into the last kilometer and I hit the pavement, my knee started hurting ... but I stepped it up even more!
About 100 feet before the finish line, I was running so fast that I came up on my husband and my two kids -- and I was so fast (bear with me here) that they didn't even see me! Okay, we'll just say that they were looking around at the excitement, but as I approached, all that I had the energy to say was, "Hey!", and they looked up to me blazing away from them. (This really is the imagery that I'm going to keep in my mind, realistic or not.) They cheered me on, and as I approached the finish line ... I saw my time: "1.01.35." (If the official time is more, then it's only because there was an enormous line of runners turning in their little tags, and it took me a minute or so to do that ... but I know my time as I crossed, so that's what I'm going to keep in my mind.)
So, I was a minute over my original goal ... did I go too slow in the beginning? Could I have beat an hour if I'd just stepped up my pace a little? In the end, that time that I was shooting for was just a random number I chose because of its roundness. I felt really pleased about the 9K for a lot of different reasons, but mostly because I started running 8 weeks ago, and I was able to run -- strong! -- for an entire hour and one minute. Plus, next year I'll be able to trim off two minutes ... just you watch. :)
As for the mandatory Mother's Day knitting content, I'll update on that next ... I made my own mom something special, and it turned out great!
