Race Report: 2009 Love ‘em or Leave ‘em 5K

This morning I ran the Love ‘em or Leave ‘em 5K at Green Lake. I previously ran this race in 2006 (27:35) and 2008 (24:30). The big change this year was that instead of only using the pedestrian path they actually shut down one lane of Green Lake Drive and used it for most of the route. This made the course marginally faster (no extra loop behind the community center to add mileage). My goal for the race was to run <25:00.

Pre Race

I picked up my bib and timing chip on Saturday so I didn’t have to worry about that on race morning. It was 1C and cloudy as I was getting ready so I chose to wear capris, a thermal long-sleeved shirt, running vest and gloves. The race was slated to start and 9:30 am so I planned to leave my apartment at 9:10 and run a one mile warm-up to the start line. At about 8:40 I tried to turn on my Garmin to take off the auto-lap function but it displayed a low battery warning. I’d charged it on Saturday so this was unexpected. I charged it for half and hour but as I went to leave the apartment it wouldn’t even turn on. Augh! Garmin Failure! I tried to remember how to reset it but I didn’t really have time so I just left it at home and made my way to the race. My warm-up was probably a little too quick but I made it to the start line about 8 mintues before the start. I lined up half way between the 7:00 and 8:00 min/mile pace signs and tried to relax and get some quick stretches in.

The Race

I was feeling a bit flustered at the start and since I didn’t have my Garmin I knew I was just going to have to run by feel. The gun went off and it only took a few seconds for me to cross the starting line. I took off hard, probably too hard, but there were supposed to be 2000+ runners in the race and I really didn’t want to get stuck behind a crowd. The course did run on the pedestrian path on the west side of the lake during the first mile but thankfully I had no crowding issues. By the time we got to Green Lake Drive I was hurting and we weren’t even at the first mile maker yet! Once I was into the second mile my goal was to just run at a controlled hard pace. Once I was into the third mile I started using mind games to maintain pace. My current favourite is counting steps in a ladder by 10’s up to 100. I was definitely being passed way more than I was passing people which made me think that I must have been slowing down substantially. I really didn’t know what pace I was running but I knew I wanted it to be over. We turned off Green Lake and onto the path towards the finish behind the Aqua Theatre. I ran hard through the finish. I didn’t get a good look at the clock but I could have sworn it said 23 something as I was running up towards it.

What? Did I just run sub 24? That’s ridiculous. No wonder I feel like I’m about to collapse!

Post Race

After the race was over I caught my breath, drank a bottle of water and ate an apple and a mini cupcake. I was hoping that they would post the race results and after about 10 minutes they finally came out. I found my name and it said I’d run 23:08! That’s a new personal best by 11 seconds. I walked away in shock. A few minutes later I had to go back and be sure that I’d read the results correctly!

I don’t have splits so I have no idea how evenly I ran the race. I actually think not having my Garmin helped me set a PB today. If I’d seen my pace I might have been tempted to let myself slow down since I was running way ahead of my goal. As it was I felt like I was running slowly (especially since I was being passed so much) so I tried really hard to maintain whatever pace I could. Setting a 5K PB wasn’t on my radar for this race or even this year so it’s a nice bonus. Hopefully it’s an indication that there are more PB’s (half marathon? 10K?) in my future!

Results

Time: 23:08

Pace: 7:28 min/mile

Overall place: 232 out of 2010 (88th percentile) [Places include walkers]

Division place: 18 out of 407 (95th percentile)

Gender place: 66 out of 1310 (94th percentile)

Full results are available here.