Threepeat at the Duck Waddle 5K

I'd pick a marathon over a 5K any day, and before this one I realized that I hadn't raced a 5K in quite awhile!  I am participating in my running club's 2018 Runner of the Year competition, and I need to run 5 short distance races (5K or under, but don't think I'm even considering a 1 mile!) during 2018 for it.  Before June 30, I'd run exactly 0.  I decided I wanted to knock 4 of them out this summer so I don't have to fit them in around longer long runs and my fall goal races (the fifth is planned for October).

I don't have any expectations for any of these 4 summer 5Ks, aside from giving what I have each race day, and that made racing this one less intimidating.  This was my third year running the Sertoma Duck Waddle (2017 recap here, 2016 recap here), and I'd won overall female both previous years, so my main goal was to make it a threepeat.  Another reason I chose to return to this race was because, despite not being certified, the course has always been reasonably accurate, which is often not the case in my area.  Historically I have run "5Ks" in the 14:50s and the 21:30s due to grossly wrong courses!

After learning that the 2018 course was not the same as the 2017 course or the 2016 course, I decided I'd run it for my warm up so I'd be able to follow it and would know if it was accurate.  There was no course map available, but luckily all of the signs and markings were up when I started warming up around 7:30 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. race.  Did I mention we were in an excessive heat warning on race morning?  I didn't even look at the weather beforehand because I knew it would be bad, but when I finished my cool down the heat index was 92 degrees, with 70% humidity.  Of course I'd have run this day regardless, but I'd have definitely started a training run at 5:30 a.m.!

The course was decent aside from 4 hairpin turns, and about half of it was shaded, which was nice! My Garmin measured it at 3.07 miles when I ran it for my warm up, and I dripped sweat while changing shoes and getting a final drink.  I headed to the starting line for some final strides and drills, talked to several local runners I knew, and waited for the race organizers to figure out how to open a gate in the park that was padlocked shut and blocking the race course.  Then we were off!

The woman who was second place in the 2017 event was in the race again, so I figured I might end up running much of the race with her like I did last year.  She was beside me for about the first half mile, and we commiserated about a hairpin turn together before I began pulling ahead.  There were several high school age boys ahead of me and one 20-something man.  I passed some of the boys and when I pulled up next to the man, he fell in stride with me.  He and I ran side-by-side from about 0.75 to 2, which was helpful and pushed me.  He was breathing a lot harder than I was, so I started questioning if I was actually pushing myself hard enough, but I sure felt like I was dying!  Dropping below half marathon pace always feels deathly fast to me.

This is the face I make when dropping below half marathon pace

He started to fade in the final mile, so I set my gaze on the one boy left in front of me.  He had a lot of real estate on me, so I knew I wasn't going to catch him unless he really died (spoiler:  he did not).  I felt like I was fading but what's mile 3 of a 5K if you're not having a coronary?  We had a helpful 200 m+ downhill in the final half mile and the race was over almost as quickly as it had started.

I couldn't see the finishing clock until I was right on it, and all I saw was the 18.  I stopped my Garmin to see my time and it read 0:01, 0:02...  I thought I'd pressed start at the race's start, but apparently I hadn't actually started it (this same thing happened to me at the Plaza 10K, although that was when I was looking at my watch a lot during races so I still captured 5.9 miles of it).  I've been racing by effort more often than not this season, so I didn't realize my Garmin wasn't running since I wasn't looking at it.

I was disappointed that I didn't have my splits, or the course distance, because my official time of 18:11 is a really good 5K time for me -- it would in fact be a PR, but with this course not being certified and my Garmin having it short on my warm up, it's not.  My Garmin usually reads right on or a little short on straight courses, and a little over on courses with more curves and turns, and this one was the latter.  My Garmin measured it at 3.07 so I figure it would have measured 3.12-3.13 for a full 5K on that route - I think I'd have run 15-20 seconds slower for a certified 5K. That's still a solid performance for me, and almost exactly what I ran at this race last year when I was not 2 weeks off of a marathon.  I was also happy to accomplish my threepeat goal.  I was not quite as happy to "cool down" as the temperature continued to rise, but I was validated in my choice to run this when I didn't have a long run on tap for the day so I didn't have 10 miles to add on afterward (I actually had no training schedule at all, but I wanted to run at least 10 miles total for the morning so added 4 after).

How can you not love a duck trophy?

I got my own results page

Full results are here.

I am going to try to run 3 more short races in July and August.  I have several possibilities but it depends on my family's schedule and how quickly I get over the pain of racing each one, hah.  I'm sure it's good for me to tackle the acute pain that is the 5K, and the shock to my body that is running sub-6:00 pace, so I'll embrace the opportunity to work on my "speed" while getting these done!