One week after Boston

I know I should be taking it easy, but now all the races are coming up.  Last Sunday was another circuit race, a 5K.  I decided instead to run the Lakefront 10 miler instead.  I know it sounds crazy, but a week after Boston, I knew the 5K would be too much of a strain on my legs.  I felt that a 10 miler would be easier on my legs.  It turned out to be a perfect day starting in the mid-40s.  It was a chip-timed race with product prizes for 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place finishers in each age category.  I didn’t bother wearing a watch because I just wanted to run more for fun.  I felt I was going at a decent clip.  Around mile 3 I wished I had done the 5K, then I’d be done.  I got a second wind after mile 4.  At the 5 mile point we pass over the timers.  Mile 6 I felt sluggish again and wished I had done a 10K instead.  Mile 8 was my 3^rd wind.  Going into the finish I realized that I would break 1:15!  That’s amazing!  I finished with a 1:14:41 time, almost a PR!

I looked at the results and saw that I was 2^nd in my age group.  Oh well, that nice Reebok duffle bag for 1^st place will be mine next year, I thought.  At the awards, they called out the winners from 3^rd place to 1^st.  After 3^rd place lady and I got our prizes, they called out the first place lady.  I wasn’t paying too much attention, but everyone around me started saying, “No way did she beat you”.  You can usually tell by how a person looks if they are relatively fast or not.  This particular person was huge to say the least.  However, she went up not to claim her prize but to tell the officials that she ran only about 5 miles.  She never crossed the 5 mile chip timer, but she crossed the finish line.  I saw that she had no chip time for mile 5 and wondered why (now I know).  Why don’t they just disqualify her from the start if they knew she didn’t cross mile 5?  They wound up giving her the 3^rd place prize for honesty.  I got my duffle bag after all.  The real 3^rd place finisher never got anything.  She probably didn’t stick around because it showed she was 4^th.  People who do not run the entire course should never cross the finish line.

What’s in store for this coming weekend?  There’s a 5K circuit race on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday.  I’ll try to run fast on Sat, but take it easy on Sunday.  Some friends of mine are running the Green Bay marathon on May 17.  I want to join them because I did so well in Boston.  There are no hotels unless there are cancellations, so it’s a wait and see.