RACE REPORT: Congress Mile!
TWO PR'S TODAY! A great day of racing!

6:42 in the mile (yes, my results came up with 'no age group' and 'no name') and unofficially 23:16 in the (HOT!) 5k! More later...but sleep and relaxing to commence!


-

This is quite possibly the strangest day of racing I have ever done in my life. A race in which there are 3 other events happening almost at the same time and same location. A 3 mile dog walk. A one mile charity walk, a one mile race (this one I am writing about) and the Congress 5000 (5k race immediately after this). It was absolutely nuts, the amount of people in a single-stretch of downtown bridge-area. Not to mention the fact my heat wasn’t even until 8:55am, which allowed me the opportunity to sleep in (but I didn’t, because who can really sleep in on race day?!)

I get there at normal race time (7am) after riding my bike the mile to get there. There is no one there, lol, and the first heat is at 8am. So I just try to either find a place to take a nap or get some caffeine. I actually found both, believe it or not. A couch under the Red Bull tent, and a cold Red Bull to sip while munching on a Clif Bar. I pretty much hung out and took in all of the sights and sounds that were going on at that time. Dogs EVERYWHERE (I mean, literally 5000+ dogs, you have no idea how loud it WASEN’T!), little kids and tons of high schoolers. Kids jogging strollers. It was almost a mad house.

My wave finally came up and I hoped that the Red Bull wasn’t going to adversely affect me. I have drank Monster before a race before and was fine. Red Bull..ehhh? It gives you wings, though, right? Well, it also makes you need to use the restroom! So I ran the mile with my bladder feeling full! However, I ran fine. Our wave was really small. (18 to 39). I think there were only 20 women in it. The first 200 meters were fast. I definitely wasn’t in the front of the pack. About 400 meters in I passed a few girls but slowed(?) into a “comfortable” pace. I was breathing hard.

600 meters to 1000 meters in were the only ‘technical’ parts of the course where we had to make some turns in order to head back on Congress (yes, they changed the course this year, so we didn’t ‘just’ run on Congress Ave.) 1200 meters in I started to throw down the hammer. There was a taller girl in my striking distance and I knew I could get her. 1400 meters in is just the straight away to the finish. At this point I told my legs to sprint and I don’t know that it happened. I heard another girl right behind me at this point. Ouch. Ouch. My breathing was fast but not sporadic.

I crossed the finish line in 6:42, good enough for 4th in my age group. The girl that passed me around 400 meters in beat me and finished her mile at about 6:30. That’s okay. I’ll take 6:42 today considering I haven’t been doing speed work. It’s still a 15 second PR for me, and a PR is a PR!

Now onwards to my next race today:)

The STATS:
1 mile
6:42/mile

Heart-rate: n/a
Weather: cool and overcast