A few weeks ago, Robyn texted me asking if I wanted a free race registration to the Worcester Jingle 5k. After almost 10 years, this man asks the dumbest questions! 
Of course I wanted a free race registration!! His work was a sponsor of the race and as part of that sponsorship, they got a certain number of free entries and only 2 other people in his company were interested. Their loss…my gain!
On Saturday afternoon I went to pick up my bib, which was the quickest bib pick up ever, I was literally there less than 2 minutes!
It poured for over 24 hours, so I was not confident in what the weather was going to look like, but thankfully the rain must have ended late in the evening because when I woke up it was dry. However, it was freezing cold! At first I was a bit annoyed the race started at 11 a.m. but I think in the colder months, due to daylight and weather, a later start time is better because it gives you a few hours to let the temperature rise a bit more. When I arrived and parked at 10:30 a.m., it was 33 degrees out and WINDY. Yikes! I hadn’t run outdoors in a month or so and I knew I was going to pay for it!
My friend Michelle was running the race too and we had texted the day before and made a plan to meet each other when we arrived. We took a quick picture and I met her friend from CrossFit and we made our way to the start line. At this point, my fingers were already frozen, even with gloves on. It’s amazing how much of a baby I am now running in the cold when I spent all of last Winter training through the negative degree temps of the Polar Vortex! I actually wanted to bail on the race because it was so cold but because I wasn’t able to run my Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, I felt like I HAD to run this one!
I had VERY low expectations for this race since my knees have been hurting so much lately and my mileage is almost non existent. My main goal was to stay in the mid-high 8’s and not walk. Pretty much my goal for most races. We listened to the national anthem, I put in my headphones, started my music and Garmin and we were off. As usual, there was a HUGE bottleneck of slower runners for the first 1/2 mile or so but I didn’t mind, I settled into a pace that felt good for me and listened to words being blasted into my ears.
There were no mile markers until we hit mile 3 and I missed all my splits on my Garmin as I was too focused on my music. I had absolutely no idea how I was doing and only looked down at my watch twice, once was at around 1.3 miles and the last time was when I stopped it at the finish. It was weird, I got into almost a trance like state during the race, it’s not something that has every happened to me before.I didn’t feel like I was moving too fast or pushing myself too hard and I didn’t care about my pace, I just kept looking forward and putting one foot in front of the other. I don’t know if it was because I was so cold that I just zoned completely out and my body was just on autopilot, but I don’t really remember much about the race other than there were A TON of turns and I kept making sure to run the curves. There was one point when my saliva choked me as it was getting caught in my mouth/throat and my lungs were burning. I had a quick coughing fit, but I just pushed through. I actually didn’t feel like I was working too hard and my legs felt good. The only time I felt like I was pushing hard was when I rounded the final turn, saw the time on the clock and pushed it until I hit the timing mats. My Garmin read 22:22 which seemed ridiculous to me, it had to be off. I didn’t believe that I could have shaved that much time off my previous PR considering my knee issues and lack of mileage lately. I knew it wasn’t the official time, but I knew it was good for a PR since my previous PR was 24:04.
I quickly ran through the mats, was handed a bottle of water and downed it. I walked over to the side and they had hot pizza and bananas for the runners. I don’t like to eat after I run so I just drank more water. I took a quick picture right after I finished, this is the I am so happy I am finished pic. My lungs were burning from the cold and my face felt frozen in place so it hurt to smile–but I was done and that felt great!
I waited at the finish for a few minutes and my friend Michelle finished around the 25 minute mark and a few minutes later her friend crossed. We made our way to where they were posting the final results in live time. My official time was 22:17!!! A 7:10 average pace?? I am still shocked, I didn’t think I had it in me. This was WAY, WAY better than I could have ever anticipated when I started the race.
At this point, the sweat was starting to dry and the wind was whipping around so we decided to walk back to our cars, but we stopped and took a quick picture in front of the beautiful tree in Franklin Square.
Post race they emailed us to look up our pictures. There was only one pic I found of myself just as I crossed the finish line….AND…we have further confirmed I take the WORST race pics…like EVER–seriously! What am I do with my face? I think I am breathing out hard, at least that is what it looks like to me. I have never had a great race pic taken of me–ugh!
Overall, I am glad I didn’t back out of this race because I wouldn’t have gotten this PR. However, that means I need to up my game for the next race. Seriously, what is wrong with me? I am so competitive with myself, I need to get a better handle on it! HA! Anyways, a bunch of us raced this past weekend and there were PRs everywhere, but I want to give a special shout out to Mike, he totally rocked his race and ended with a HUGE PR after shaving 7 minutes off his time, 7 minutes is CRAZY! Congrats!! I love seeing you all out there rocking your races!!
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Question of the day
Anyone else PR this weekend? What do you have on tap for the rest of the year for races? Shout it out!!
