Horrible weather greeted me on the morning of the Memorial Regional Burn Center 5k. Storms woke me up around 05:30 and I anticipated running in the rain. However, by 07:30 the raining had stopped.
Warming up I could tell this was not going to be good. I don’t perform well in the heat or humidity and this morning it was miserable. After running a 2 mile warm up lap I looked like someone had rubbed me with Carnuba Wax. Sweat was beading all over my body. My shorts were already squishy and I had a constant drip of sweat from my nose.
The race started with the horn of a fire truck and a front group quickly was established. I was in this front group of about 5 and felt OK. By the time we hit the 1 mile marker I was starting to feel sluggish. My first mile was done in 06:14.
As we approached the turn around at the far end the park I had lost contact with the first 2 runners. I struggled to keep them close hoping that my first mile was too fast and I needed some recovery time. However, the more I ran the worse I felt and they stayed about 50 meters ahead of me. Mile 2 was recorded with an average pace of 06:59. I was slowing down dramatically.
On the final downhill I could tell the first place runner had dropped the second place runner. I entertained a glimmer of hope of caching number 2 but that was short lived. However, at the bottom of the hill I was cheered on by a group of ladies with the words “go Hardy Breed”. This gave me an extra rush of adrenaline and kind of snapped me out of the lactic acid haze I was in. Thanks Rabbits.
The final uphill was a struggle and I was actually passed by another runner. There was nothing I could do about it. I limped in with a time of 21:35 and average pace of 06:57.
First place recorded a time of 20:50 and I was 4th overall ( 3rd in my age group). It seemed everyone was affected by the humidity.
