Thoughts On My First 5K In A Decade

Some interesting things happened to me today that haven't in over ten years. A sampling:

1) shin splints
2) self-pacing
3) "Are you sure you don't have to go?"
4) dehydration...that I really felt
5) Passersby running up to me, an alarmed look on their faces, saying, "Oh my God, are you okay?"
6) (upon arriving home, post-run) "Damn, I need to buy Gatorade."

Okay, so, the explanation:

1) shin splints: these are wonderful little pains that shoot up your--you guessed it!--shins when you're doing a high-impact activity like running. The more out of shape you are, the worse they hurt, at least in my experience, and the more fit you are, the more quickly they disappear. It's not like I spent the whole 5K in severe pain...though I started out that way. The bad news, at leats for me, was that they hurt like hell when they started. The good news is that they went away within about a quarter of a mile.

2) self-pacing: okay, so when you're in a race you can usually within the first few minutes lock down on a pacer, someone going about the same speed you are and is in your line of sight who you can keep your eye on during the run and maintain approximately the same speed. When you're out running alone it's really easy to screw up your pacing, especially when you're used to team training. As a cross-country runner and racer in Florida I never ran alone; I was always either with my teammates or in a race. Gregory and I ran together once and I was able to keep up with his pace, but the man had already done a full days' workout (which is something like four to seven hours of running, cycling, or swimming or some combination of two of the above) and the run we did was like a little cool-down for him. That one actually felt good, because we were moving at a snail's pace. My biggest problem with starting to run again from a performance standpoint was pacing. I would start out at my old race pace, which meant seven minute miles a decade or so ago but now means I get about half a block before I'm wheezing. To some degree this run began that way too; for the first half of it I did a pretty up-and-down run/walk, sometimes accelerating to my old race pace and sometimes walking...briskly. For the second half, though, I made up my mind to run it. That meant not stopping. I completed the last half of the run the way I wanted to, running the whole time, learning to pace myself, check my pace and re-pace as necessary. This was huge...I've never done it before and also never realized how essential, and difficult, it can be (largely because I never needed to do it before now!) to maintain your own pace. But finishing the last mile and a half and running the whole thing...man, did that feel good.

3) "Are you sure you don't have to go?" This is a phrase most of us stop hearing when we're children, and it's being asked of us by our parents, and it refers to the bathroom. It's one of those that is usually brought to an abrupt halt as the child matures and goes from smiling winningly at the parent to rolling their eyes and hissing "Yes!" in mortal embarrassment at the question. Now, I don't ask myself this every time I leave and I usually don't need to...I can handle my potty time by now, thank you very much; however, I forgot that when you're running for forty-five minutes or so and a substantial portion of your run is through neighborhood streets with virtually no commercial property whatsoever around you, chances are you need to make sure you've visited the loo before leaving home. This was, easily, the most amusing of my thoughts, as it brought me back to thinking that I am, again, an infant...an infantile athlete, that is. There are few opportunities in life where you get to regress back to infancy and literally start all over again, but athletics is one area where that is always the case...if you don't keep training, you lose your ability to perform, and the deterioration is quick and intense.

4) dehydration...that I really felt Okay this one isn't as scary as it sounds; I didn't drop dead of thirst halfway through or anything, but I am the first to admit that I am terrible about drinking enough water. I drink soda like it's going out of style and water only when I have no other option. Running today, I really felt that. My mouth dried up and my lips were a virtually impregnable fortress around my teeth, they were so thickly glued together. I'm glad I didn't feel thirsty because, as one of Gregory's tri magazines pointed out recently, if you're thirsty, you're already in trouble, but I was definitely overheating a bit and perspiring too little for the workout I was doing...I have GOT to start drinking more water....beginning with the refill of the glass I just downed sitting in front of me at my desk.

5) Passersby running up to me, an alarmed look on their faces, saying, "Oh my God, are you okay?" Now, actually, this IS something I'm kind of used to, because I'm a total klutz. I crash into stuff, drop things, lose my balance and fall over, etc. all the time. I am not, however, used to minding my own business and having someone run up to me--from across the street, mind you--to stop me in the middle of my run and ask if I'm all right. Seriously. Today as I neared Broadway on Balsam, a woman who was walking her dog across the street from me saw me, looked suddenly alarmed, and bolted across the street towards me. I was in the midst of my running reverie, that wonderful little somewhere you float away to when you're jamming to good tunes and your adrenaline is nice and boosted, when she grabbed my arm. "Oh my God, are you okay?" She asked. I jogged in place for a moment, tearing off my headphones and looking at her quizzically. "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you okay?" It seemed only natural that I should ask her as well; maybe she really wasn't and this was her way of using reverse psychology to be able to tell me or something. "Yes, I'm fine," she replied, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you, but your face is really, really red." I smiled, nodded, assured her that I really was okay and thanked her, and we both continued on our respective merry ways. Now, while it was very sweet of her to stop and ask, I really was fine, and I broke my stride to chat with her, and, well, I would say it's due to the dehydration but it really isn't...I could drink gallons of water and electrolyte replacement drinks daily and my face would STILL be beet-colored after the first half-mile of any run. It's something that always happens, and if I've been running for a really long time, my skin turns white just around my lips, nose and eyebrows and the rest of my face is red. I can't help it, though while I appreciate this woman's concern (this really has happened before; when I was a cross-country runner in Florida I got asked this question at every race I was in, for school or individually) I'd rather just let the world of Boulder know that unless I'm flat on my back I'm probably all right. So this section also functions as a warning for any Boulderites reading this blog (yeah right...because sooo many of you are!): I have quite short red-blonde hair and fair skin, and I wear either black Adidas warm-ups (the kind with the triple stripe down the outside of each leg) and a grey yoga top with criscrossing straps or black running shorts with same top and/or maybe a tee shirt over the top. I also almost always wear some sort of sound system running...my CD player and stereo headphones thus far, but if I can get Gregory's sport MP3 player working he's said I can borrow it instead, and my hair is almost always in a headband. If you see me on foot, in this gear or something similar, jogging, and my face is beet-colored, I'm okay. Thanks for asking. ;)

6) (upon arriving home, post-run) "Damn, I need to buy Gatorade." I haven't needed to keep electrolyte replacement drinks on hand in a very, very long time, and nothing does the trick for me like Gatorade. My mom loves Propel, but I'm a classics fan when it comes to my sports drinks. It was nice to open up my fridge and think that rather than, "Damn, I need to buy some Coke."

The Bolder Boulder is May 30...T-minus 27 days and counting!