Celtic Soltice 5 Miler, 9/16

Before we learned that the training would be starting in December Liz and I signed up for the Celtic Solstice 5 Miler in Baltimore. Teen had run this the past couple of years and said it was a really good race. Oh, and they have really nice custom designed long sleeve tech shirts. No that it has anything to do with signing up to run a race. Much.

I don't think I've ever run 5 miles in my life. I mean ever. I always hated running. Maybe freshman year of high school we ran 5 mile long runs for soccer practice a couple times. I was on the track team for 4 years but only for discus and shot put (and high jump for a bit). The throwers usually groused about running the mile wam-up lap that we all did. Most of our time was spent in the weight room or out in the pits practicing technique. I may have come close when I started running in college for a brief time, but I think those were mostly 3-4 miles. So 5 miles was a new one. I was kind of scared but determined to get through it. I told myself that I would treat it as two 2.25 mile runs with a break in between.

Liz, Teen, Steph and I went up to Baltimore to stay with my parents the night before. With 1800 runner registered (almost double the year before) it was probably going to be a zoo. We got down to the course aroud 8:00 and checked in. Turns out there was a shortage of shirts. By the time I picked mine up all they had were XXL. The shirt fit me, but they were different than the regular shirts. Just regular tech tees without the zip up. I was pretty bummed. Others were downright angry. No sense in making a big deal about it before running. Liz had bronchitis and decided (wisely) not to run the whole thing.

The course was pretty hilly, with a long, steady climb out for the first 1/2 mile and a sustained hill around mile 2 with gently rolling hills in between. The good part about the out and back course is that every hill you went up you also got to go down. After seeing how I did on the Turkey Trot my goal for the race was to go 55:00, so average 11 minutes miles. I still have no conception of pace, so I was going to keep time and look at my mile splits on my watch. The first mile was tough with that hill, but I hit the first mile marker at 9:41. I even bested that at mile 2 with a 9:16 split. After that I stopped looking at my watch. It wasn't going to do me any good at that point to think about my speed. Just run a decent pace without killing myself. Mile 3 marked the end of the real hills. It was good timing as I caught Liz coming up the course from her shortened run. At about 3.25 we hit the reservoir which was a fairly flat looop of about a a mile before the 1/2 long hill down to the finish. Turns out my 5K time was almost two-and-a-half minutes better than my Thanksgiving time! I was amazed at that when I reviewed my splits after the race.

Just before mile 4 I started to get winded and stopped to walk for about 45 seconds or a minute to catch my breath and get my heartrate down. I found Teen just after that and we ran around the lake together. My mile 4 split was obviously the slowest due to the walking, but still clocked in at under 10:00. Knowing that I could easily beat the time I had set for myself I didn't sprint down the final hill. My mile 5 split was around 9:30. The "official" results only have the gun time recorded (we were in the middle of the pack and took a bit to get to the starting line), but according to my stopwatch I ran 47:51. That's almost 9:30 mile pace!! If anything I'm not scared of running longer distances any more. I certainly won't be anywhere close to fast, but hopefully I'll be able to finish the 6.2 mile run come April.