There's something about the Plaza 10K!

The short:
Mother Nature didn't want the Plaza 10K runners to have it easy this year, so she gave us 71 degrees with thunderstorms in the area and a dew point of 68.  Historically I haven't raced well in these conditions, so I lined up ready to give it my all and to be thankful for whatever that was, without any specific time or pace expectations.  I ran by effort and ignored my watch, and although I had an idea where I was at since the race had a course clock at the 5K mark, I was thrilled to see the finishing clock in the 36s as I came down the final stretch.  My official time of 36:52 is 18 seconds off my PR, which I ran in 56 degrees on the same course last year, but it almost felt like a PR because it was much faster than I thought I would run in the weather we had.  It is by far the best I've raced anything in temperatures over 70, and it felt so good after a disappointing 5K in similar conditions the previous weekend.

My official results are here, and my Strava activity of the race can be seen here.

I remembered not to stop my watch for once!

On my drive to the race, Psalm 23 popped into my head

The long:
I had a hard time getting pumped up for this race because of the forecast.  I was still feeling discouraged from the Brookhaven 5K, and the weather conditions were shaping up to be nearly identical for this race.  I thought my fitness was there, but I didn't feel good about showing it in crap weather - plus optimism and denial hadn't worked the previous weekend!

I was at this race solo, so this was my race day pic!

However, as always I got excited when I got in the race environment and began warming up.  This race is very competitive, so as usual one of my goals was to place as high as I could.  My other goals were to get the best out of myself that day, and to not be afraid to hurt.

The race started and I settled into the effort level that felt maintainable for 6.2 miles.  Several women went out ahead of me, and I began setting my eyes on the ponytail closest to me and working towards it.  I latched onto men here and there to help pull me up to the next ponytail.  I passed Chander, who I ran most of Grandma's Marathon with, shortly after the mile mark and encouraged her to work her way up with me.  The familiar course was comforting, although I caught myself thinking, "I remember how much cooler it was last year" a few times.

Mid-race focus

I was nearing a woman and feeling strong when we passed the 5K clock in 18:24.  I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to breathe a sign of relief, since the pace felt hard but it also felt do-able, whereas the previous week I'd been nearly dead after racing a flatter 5K in 18:23.  That gave me a nice boost and I accelerated past that women, encouraging her to work with me to catch the two ponytails ahead of us.

A couple of my male pace buddies around mile 4

After that point I worked with a couple of men for the second half of the race.  The effort was hard but I kept telling myself just to stay with them; they would get me in the 36s.  Although I didn't have a time goal when I started the race, I sure had one after I saw my 5K course split, and that was to run something starting with a 36!  I knew that wouldn't be an easy task, because the final 2 miles of this course have a lot of uphill and I've always positive split on it.  Also, my coach told me that humidity affects us most in the second half of a race, which seems like a good explanation for why I positive split everything in the summer even though in general I consider myself a good negative splitter...

I started to hurt really bad with 1.5 miles to go, but I was gaining slightly on a ponytail about 30 seconds ahead and wouldn't let myself give up, just in case!  Running near the men helped a lot, but as they sprinted in the final 0.2 I didn't have much left to give - by that point I also knew that I wasn't going to move up or get caught in my female position.  As I came down the final stretch, I saw that I was going to make it in the 36s and broke out in a smile!

I remembered to not stop my watch right at the
line in hopes of getting good finishing photos!

The woman who won my age group was from Flagstaff, AZ

Post-race, I ran an 8 mile cool down with great company, which has become tradition for this Sunday race that always coincides with marathon training (probably because I am always marathon training, bahaha!)!  I felt pretty good on the slow cool down until we climbed a massive steep hill in the final mile, in search of Sharon's car...

The race took about 8 photos of us finishing our cool down, hah!

The more I reflected on my race, the better I felt about it.  The woman who won the race last year in 34:36 ran 35:24 this time for second place, and she is in top shape preparing for the Twin Cities Marathon.  Another fast female who ran 35:09 last year finished in 36:09 this year.  I finished in front of a women I've never beat before, who ran 36:10 last year and 37:27 this time.  Thinking about it that way, I felt that being 18 seconds slower than my 2018 time was perhaps equivalent to a 30-40 second PR, and this was sure a better checkpoint than my race the weekend before!

Pretty happy with these grade-adjusted paces except for mile 6 and the final 0.24 -
those show I didn't have much left to give!

I wish mile 4 was instead mile 6

I wrote about my Plaza 2018 race here and my Plaza 2017 race here.  Clearly I need to keep running this race every year, because I have never come away thinking it could have gone any better.  I'm thankful I returned for the Plaza 10K magic in 2019.

Psalm 23:1:  The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want...  23:6:  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

My course 5K splits were 18:24 and 18:27!

Post-race brunch company

Hahaha!

Brookhaven 5K: Fitness & optimism don't always = PR, & disappointed doesn't mean upset

For the first time in years, I was very excited to race a 5K!  The Brookhaven Run in Norman, Oklahoma seemed to be my best chance around for a fast one:  it was a flat course, it was very competitive, and I'd been running faster speed workouts this summer than I'd done since high school.  I thought this would be my chance to have a real 5K PR in the 17s (versus having run in the 17s only as part of a 10K, unofficially).  My main objective for the race was to run something starting with a 17, but my coach thought I was in shape to run under 17:30, which became my A goal.  I also wanted to get in there and compete in the competitive women's field.

Pushing it

My week leading up to the race was far from ideal; it was one of the most stressful work weeks I've ever had, and I lost a lot of sleep due to an event that occurred on Monday that snowballed into issues every subsequent day.  Travel to the race also wasn't ideal; we arrived at our hotel to find out they had no water and didn't know when it would be back on, so we found a different hotel.  My parents were joining us for the race and weekend get away, and their RV brakes went out when they parked at packet pick up.  With these snafus I didn't eat dinner the night before the race until about 9:00 p.m., after becoming quite hangry (advice: don't try to call hotels.com to make sure you don't get charged for a reservation when extremely hungry!), and I also didn't eat enough at that point.  At times I'm pretty good at denying all problems and continuing to be optimistic about a race no matter what, so I chose blissful ignorance and decided I could still PR on Saturday morning..."because it's only a 5K."

When I woke up at 5:45 a.m. on Saturday to see the dew point of 70 degrees and temperature of 71 degrees, I continued to choose optimism.  Although historically I really suffer when the dew point is 70+, I decided that since it was "only a 5K", I'd be fine.

When we arrived at the race site, we found my parent's broken down RV in the finish chute (I am not kidding, but at least it was near the food and drinks instead of impeding the course).  I found the elite athlete check-in, and as I was getting my number I heard a man saying "This is Sarah Kiptoo, your overall female winner and soon-to-be Oklahoma state record holder" to one of the race organizers as an introduction.  That was a pretty bold statement, but I think it was pretty easy to assume she would win overall female, and there was a very nice financial incentive for anyone who broke the record, so I am sure that is why she came to the race (she is a professional who I believe trains in New Mexico).  I got a peak at the list of the elite female field, which was pretty intimidating, but I hoped it would pull me to a fast time!

With Albani & my mom pre-race

Despite suffocating in the humidity on my warm-up, I still told myself I'd be fine in the weather ("just a 5K").  I ran most of the course to warm up, did some drills and strides, and jumped in the elite corral.  The race did some detailed call-outs for some elite entrants.  In addition to Sarah Kiptoo, Brooks Beasts professional runner Hannah Fields was also in the field, plus about 5 others ladies with a lot of running credentials attached to their names.

At 8:00 a.m. (which seemed like mid-day to this 5:00 a.m. runner!), we were off!  The course was very crowded initially, and it was by far the thickest field I've ever run in during a 5K, which was mostly nice but resulted in more weaving than I'd have liked, particularly as some of the high school boys who went out very hard fell off.  The course had clocks at every 1K, and I knew to run 17:30 I would need to run 3:30 kilometers, or for 17:55 I would need 3:35.  I was solely focused on effort - at sustaining what felt maintainable for a 5K - but I knew I'd end up doing the math at every clock I saw so I wanted to be prepared.  I passed the first clock in around 3:36, which I figured was perfect to start.  I heard my watch beep so I knew when I hit the mile but didn't look at my split until after the race (it was 5:48).  My 2K was 7:12ish, so my pace was consistent.  I was hurting pretty bad at halfway, but I just kept thinking about how my coach said that it was supposed to hurt really bad from 1.5-2.5, and I kept pressing towards runners ahead of me, passing a couple of women and several men, all of whom were apparently slowing worse than me.

Final stretch

I thought my stride looked good at least!

I can't remember my 3K split, but I knew I was going to need a negative split to break 18 at that point.  My Garmin split for mile 2 was 5:48.  A man passed me around that time and I told myself to go with him, which helped me keep my turnover going to some degree.  The 4K came in 14:45, and then I knew my sub-18 had slipped away; I couldn't run the final K in 3:14 or under (I just don't have that kind of speed, nor did I have enough left in the tank).  I tried to press as hard as I could anyway, focusing on a woman in front of me and trying to catch her, but I had to hold back disappointment about not breaking 18.

Spoiler: that guy out-kicked me

I finished in 18:23 (official results are here), with a 5:15 pace final 0.15 (the course was certified but I couldn't run the tangents in the crowd - and for comparison, my Garmin read 26.20 in Grandma's Marathon!).  I was 6th overall female and I had ladies in my sights who I hadn't been close to before.  Our bib numbers were our rankings in the field, and later Albani asked me, "How did they know what order people were going to finish in??" since female bibs 1-2-3-4-5 finished in that order, and I think it was similar for the men.  I was happy about my placing and mostly happy with my race execution, but I was disappointed that my time was so far off what we thought I had in me, and that my 10K PR is still a faster pace than my official 5K PR.  I have also run pretty close to this 5K time for the final 5K in half marathons and during tempo runs.

Top 7 women

The upsides are that this is my fastest certified 5K ever (I have run 18:16-18:19 three times but none were certified courses), and this is faster than any 5K I ran in high school or college, at age 38!  My coach did a couple humidity calculators for me and said she thought the conditions added about 20 seconds/mile, or a minute to my race time, showing that I was in sub-17:30 shape (I also did the math on 5% from this humidity calculator).  Although I don't like anyone to miss their goals, I felt better that Sarah Kiptoo missed her goal by over a minute (she ran 16:31, trying for the 15:28 state record).  But, calculations and comparisons don't get you a PR or the confidence that comes with one.

My times in training tell me that my training is working, but I'd hoped to have a race to confirm it - but I am fortunate that I'll have a couple more tries before The Big One (Indy Monumental Marathon).  I also think back to October 2018 through March 2019 when I would have given almost anything to run a 5K like this, or to run a 5K at all.  I promised myself during my fall injury that I would never get so caught up in performances again, but that is admittedly easier said than done.  I want to be thankful - so I am aiming to continue with my sometimes blissfully ignorant optimism!

Plus you can't be upset if you did your best, and I did.  It took me about 25 years of running to learn that you can't bully yourself into performing or force anything on race days!

I would have been somewhat happier
if mile 3 had been 5:48.3, haha!

Any day I'm healthy enough to toe the line is one I'm thankful for, and I feel better about my training overall than I feel about this race.  I also trust that I'm where God wants me to be, so onto the next!