Tomorrow is the Chicago Marathon and I am not running that. My marathon season is over and instead I am focusing on 5k races to work on speed (the marathon is 42.2k so one runs that a lot slower). As part of my kickoff in my 5k training, I ran a 5k race today which was one of my university's homecoming events. This race is meant to serve as a time trial to gauge what my current speed is so I can build upon it and get faster for my next race, the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot!

The course is a bit hilly and I'm not as fast as I was a few years ago, which is a little hard for me to handle. I'm always worried about the effects of aging on my ability to do things and the specter of perimenopause and the dramatic changes it inflicts on the body (e.g., accelerated muscle loss) is eating into my confidence. On Thursday, I walked most of the course to get a feel for where the hills would be so I could adjust my pacing and expectations. I didn't sleep well last night due to a number of factors but I arrived 50 minutes before the start of the race with something of a plan. My goal was to run under or as close to 25.00 for 5k which is 5:00/kilometer or 8:03/mile. A part of me was worried I was overestimating myself and that I'd end up coming in well over that, but I tried to put that out of my mind and just focus on running smart. Running smart also means adapting to the course (e.g. not getting down when my pace drops on the uphill) and also not starting too fast and blowing all my energy on the first kilometer.

I'm not going to lie - it was hard and I doubted myself along the way. I made the decision to look at my watch minimally and to focus on distance and only on pace at certain times (mainly to check I wasn't going too fast the beginning and to also check my speed once on each hill). The big hill did hurt and I found myself gasping a lot as a way to tighten my stomach so I would not vomit. I've never gotten sick while running but today might have been the closest I came.

Early on, I was passed by a boy who was supposedly 13 but looked 8 years old and then a man pushing a double stroller with two children in it. That was humbling. There were not a lot of women near the front of the race, but there was one that I took turns passing and being passed by until about halfway through when I passed her on the ugly hill. The final kilometer was both downhill and flat, but I was feeling tired and anticipated that I would be passed by other women. I let go of my goal of sub 25 minutes and focused on running sub 26. No other woman passed me and based on the time between cheers behind me by race volunteers, I was well ahead of whomever was behind me. I pushed until the finish line, feeling shock to see the time read 24:18 because I knew my pace was nowhere near that fast. When I stop my watch, I saw that the course was short (4.84km) explaining the surprisingly fast finishing time. My actual pace for a 5km was a 5:02 meaning I would have finished in around 25:10 which was still pretty close to my goal considering the long ass hill.

What was shocking but gratifying was being approached after I finished to be notified that I was the first place woman overall.  The woman I had been jockeying places with in the first half of the course finished 40 seconds behind me in second place. I thought I'd have a good chance of winning my age group (Women 50-59) but in no way did I think I'd be I the top 5 for this race. Here's me crossing the finish line looking super exhausted and clueless that I was first. 

This was a bit of a morale booster and it gives me a nice starting point for my 5k training. And I also got a ridiculously giant trophy.