So I ran the Boilermaker 15K in Utica, NY this morning. Very slowly. In fact, I got slower every mile, except for the last little bit, which I inadvisedly tried to sprint. I had to do it, although it was kind of the nail in the coffin (I do enjoy macabre imagery).
Anybody who is hoping for a cheery overview of a premiere event, this is not it. The Boilermaker is a great, a wonderful, a unique event (and I do not use the term unique lightly). I had fun, chatted with some nice people, and was glad to be a part of it. But I had a little trouble. Since this is my blog about me, and I am going to tell it as I experienced it.
Things went pretty well for the first four miles. Breathing was a little difficult due to humidity. However, the temperature was not too hot; the overcast skies helped. We felt a few sprinkles of rain before the race started, but that went away, and no thunder rumbled.
A couple of times I got a little stitch in my right side. I lifted that arm over my head in a stretch and tried to breathe more deeply. So far so good. Then my left knee and my left hip started in on me. The hip was more of a problem. It hurt! I kept saying, “Oh crap!” Nobody paid me any mind to which I took no offense. We all have our problems.
The last three miles were bad. I had been saying to myself, “Just run your own pace, run your own race” almost since we started. Eventually I started saying to myself, “Just keep going.” The spectators cheering us on helped. My fellow runners, too encouraged me.
For a while I ran next to an older gentleman. His walk was the pace of my run. He told me how he had broken his foot one year but did not go to the doctor till after the Boilermaker, because the doctor would have told him not to run. Wow! At least all my bones were intact!
The last 1.3 miles took forever! “You’re almost there!” they kept telling me, to which I replied, “Promises, promises!” Then I figured if I had enough breath to be a wise-ass, I must be doing better than I thought.
In these races, be they 5K or 15, I try to keep myself from starting my final sprint too soon. I have done that at the Reindeer Run 5K in Little Falls more than once, and it is not pretty (not that I am especially pretty by that point in a race anyways). Today I questioned my ability to sprint or even speed up at all, but I firmly told myself not to worry about it. Just finish! That was my goal.
As I said in the first paragraph, I somehow found it in myself to sprint at the end. Go faster, go faster, I urged myself, and my poor old body responded as best it could. For one reason, I was so close to end I wanted to get there as soon as possible!
And it was not pretty. However, I see I am over 500 words. That is a long post for me. I will stop blogging now. I may tell the rest of my tale tomorrow. But no promises.
Mohawk Valley Girl 