Born to Run 5 Mile Race

sobele Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:44 am

Born to Run 5 Mile Road Race

This is the 2^nd year in that I’ve run this race. Last year I ran it in 34:40. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it this year for a couple of reasons. My wife is 9 months pregnant and could go at any moment so I wasn’t sure if we’d be in the hospital on race day and I’ve also been battling a foot injury. It’s felt better over the past couple of weeks but I’ve been running gingerly. I was questioning myself on whether or not I should run this year and potentially aggravate my foot. One thing I’ve learned in my extremely brief career as a “runner” is that it’s very difficult for me to dial it down a notch whether it’s while I’m training and especially on race day.

So, we’re still waiting for our bundle of joy to arrive and my foot was feeling good so I got up and headed to the streets of Freehold, NJ (where The Boss grew up) to see how I do.

I like the course because it’s has both road and trails. Part of it heads through a local 5k cross country course. I do a lot of training on trails so I always feel comfortable on them.

Weather was pretty ideal for the race as it was sunny and in the low to mid 50’s at the start. There was a little wind which seemed to pick up almost immediately but dissipated before I hit the 2^nd mile. I didn’t have a lot of expectations heading into this one, however, I was hoping to PR my 5 mile race (which is 33:11). My last 5 miler was in June and I did a lot of training over the summer and into the fall so I felt that would count for something.

After mile 1 I wasn’t sure. I was having a hard time finding a rhythm and I actually thought I got out too quick and wasn’t going to last at the pace I was running (6:19, mile 1). Heading into the 2^nd mile I started to feel a little better. We headed onto the trail and like I said before I feel extremely comfortable on them, however my pace started to slow down (6:27 mile 2) but I felt good and I wanted to make sure that I’d have something left in the tank the last mile. So heading into mile 3 I slowed down a little bit more and ran it in 6:45. Mile 4 was the hardest as it heads back onto the streets with 2 very sizeable hills. I kept my current pace of 6:45 and surprisingly I felt real good after mile 4 (must have been all the hill training I did over the summer). Last mile I picked up the pace. This is when you start to see spectators and start to hear the encouraging cheers, which quite frankly does help. I ran the last mile in 6:21.

I crossed the finish line at 32:41.5, which was 25^th overall (691 runners) and 4^th in my AG. More importantly I beat my last year’s time by just under 2 minutes and PR’d my 5 miler by 30 seconds.

Overall it was an extremely successful day and I was pleased with the results. Thanks for reading.

Michele "1L" Keane Sat Nov 26, 2011 11:08 am

Nice running! And congrats on the baby on the way1

Ken Cushing Sat Nov 26, 2011 12:23 pm

Great job on getting the PR! Congrats on the baby! It reminds me of when I had my first. I had been training for the St George Marathon. I run it every year and hate to miss it. My daughter came 3 1/2 weeks early just days before the race. At that point I planned to miss the race, but my wife insisted I go! So I went down and had a great race.