Race: Sugar Bowl 5 Miler
Location: South Boston, MA
Distance: 5 Miles
Goal Time: 37:30
Actual Time: 37:25 (1st, Clydesdales)
As we turned off of Day and onto the Harborwalk Path around 3.5 miles, I could only think of Third World’s song:
“It was 96 degrees in the shade!”
Thankfully, there was an L Street Volunteer with a hose spraying. Everybody was moving into the left lane to run through the spray.
I had told Sanjay that I was going to try to put in a 35 minute race. In a perfect world, with reasonable temperatures, that would have happened. Today was not such a day. At 4:00 it had been 101°F Downtown and 98°F at the airport! While it had probably cooled down to chilly 95 by 6:30 race time, it was still HOT!!!
I managed to keep myself in control and on target for the first 2 miles. The pancake flat course against the Harbor had me easily stamping out 7 minute miles. At the turn around at P Street (roughly 2.0646 miles according to L Street’s map), I heard 14:20 something. Perfect!
Then, I turned around. Ahhhh! I had had a tail wind. Now, I was running directly into a HOT land breeze. Unnngh!
Immediately the mixture of heat and wind threw off my dream of 35 minutes. But, I regrouped and committed myself to 7:30 miles the rest of the way. While I did not achieve that – especially the mile between 2.5 and the turn off at 3.47 – I did keep myself stamping along without the undulating peaks and valleys. (Over the past year, I have become a far more consistent runner).
While my last mile was only a 7:30, only one or two people passed me and I was largely able to stay with the group with whom I had run through the 3.47 mile water hose. I started to get the buttered scallops taste in my mouth, but still fought through it. Sanjay (who is both with Somerville and L Street) stood at the last turn cheering me on for the last 50 yards. I pulled in with a 5 Mile PR and brought home some hardware!
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