Race Recap - Run Around the Square 5K 2017

Spoilers:

I had a really good race! As I mentioned in my weekly recap post, this race is an annual favorite of mine, and I've been making decent progression on it, year-to-year: 39:37 (2015) -> 32:14 (2016) -> 31:33 (2017). I'm actually kind of shocked that I came within a minute and a half(ish) of my PR here of all places, but based on my previous experiences I know that I'm definitely a better runner each time I run this one. The first mile is flat and fun and this year I reminded myself not to get carried away with all the bands and course support and go out too fast. Because after a steep downhill into Frick Park, the rest of this race is on the trails, and Mile 2 is particularly vicious. Almost all uphill! 

The first time I ran this race, I turned in a speedy 9:00 first mile which was basically unheard of for me at the time and even now isn't within my 5K pace (though...soon? Maybe!). So when I was caught unawares by the brutal uphills in Mile 2, I spent most of the rest of the race with a stitch in my side and couldn't take full advantage of the almost entirely downhill third mile. Last year I knew better and paced myself accordingly, and was at my goal weight and super pleased with my time. So today's result was absolutely a shock to me!

To backtrack a little bit - this race does packet pickup on Friday evenings. It's a huge event for the neighborhood so everyone gathers at the community building, they have a food truck and some music, and we get our shirts. This is also when they do the weigh-in for the heavyweight divisions. I was pretty excited because I jumped on registration as soon as it was available and knew I'd gotten a hilariously low bib number - single digits! So I got my bib and went over to the weigh-in table. Last year I'd been just over the cutoff and they actually tried to turn me away, but this year I didn't have that problem and got myself on the list properly (as opposed to my goof at the Turtle Trot last month). And then I got my shirt - they switch up the colors every year and one of the fun things is spotting previous editions. There was an older guy walking around with a shirt from 1987 on Friday!

This is the 35th anniversary of the race, and I'm not sure if that's why we got a long sleeve (last two years have been short) but the material is nicer in my opinion and it has the cute sleeve design so I'm not complaining! My best guess is they end up going more or less with whatever they can get a deal on, but it makes for a nice variety of shirts, regardless. It's a nice maroon color this year that's kind of tough to photograph. Normally this is a pretty warm day so I didn't expect to see too many of these during the race itself, but the weather this year was cool, so quite a few people did end up wearing them.

So Friday night went smoothly, and I met up with Mike on Saturday morning and we drove in together (easier to find parking for one car than two). I had a Clif bar and a banana, and some coffee, which isn't too far off my normal pre-race food. The forecast was mid to upper fifties and partly cloudy, though we'd mostly be covered by trees once we started running. I picked out a pair of capris but decided to stick with a tank top (I'm slowly turning into one of those running people wearing as little as possible, especially for races - though my 'little' is still a lot more than other folks!). I'd unearthed a tank top I ordered from SCRR on clearance last fall but by the time I'd gotten it, it was a little small. Today it fit just fine! So that was a nice surprise. We made it plenty early (whew) and met up with a couple of friends (our friend from the Goat Gallop and her partner), and even managed to make it in time for the SCRR photo, which almost never happens!

One of the other SCRR runners' wife had brought their Bernese Mountain Dog (this is a super dog-friendly race, they have a separate walk that dogs can participate in and even get a bandanna that matches the runner shirts!) and also a 6 week old Bernese puppy! I decided to pet the puppy (because adorable) and got a few tiny licks, which I decided had to be good luck.

By then it was just about time to get started, and after an odd botched gun start, we were off! It went about as I expected, and I managed to hold myself to a 9:49 in mile 1 as we descended into the park. There were some really good musicians this year which is always a treat. Mile 2 gives you a little break, but not much, and is pretty punishing: 11:29, though I felt a lot slower than that at the time! Finally, Mile 3 makes you go over one last hill before dropping you down, down, down into the ravine in the middle of the park. I was pretty worn out by that point but have apparently learned at least a thing or two about running downhill: 9:51. Somewhere in the park my GPS lost the .1 (I know it went off a decent bit after the Mile 2 mark on the course) so that's not 100% accurate splits, but you get the idea. A pretty good race!

After crossing the finish I found Mike and then made a beeline for the portapotty, and then headed directly for the hot dog line, which was already plenty long and stretched across the open area where the finish party happens. As we slowly inched towards the table with food, I felt myself starting to crash pretty hard and had to wander away to try to find something to get in me quickly. I wasn't thinking as well as I could have been, because for some reason I came back with a NuGo bar and hard pretzels instead of the bananas, bagels, or candy that were near those other things. The bar was incredibly hard to eat - at least for me when this happens, it's incredibly difficult to even summon the energy to eat despite knowing how badly I need to. It's like my mouth doesn't remember how to chew. I asked Mike to go get me some water and by the time the line had crawled another third of the way across the park I was feeling a little bit better but not great.

Finally I got a hot dog and we found a bench where I sat and ate that and some of the pretzels and slowly got back to normal. I hate these crashes and it's hard to say exactly why they happen sometimes and not others. I'm just glad I didn't bonk so hard that I had to see the paramedics, but it felt awfully near today. I need to start carrying an emergency gel or something for these situations in the future. It was really crowded down there and that didn't help, and I was sweating pretty hard but it was chilly, so I generally felt out of sorts and uncomfortable on top of the rest of it.

Anyway, after that little hiccup, we hit the rest of the tents giving out samples and snacks, and got a tiny Rita's Italian ice (orange - yummy, but caused the worst brain freeze ever for about 30 seconds), some bagels, and Gatorade, but decided to pass on the beer. We wandered by the board where results are usually posted, but they only had the 1.5 mile results up, and were announcing the 5K results on the podium nearby. I briefly tried to pull them up on my phone with no luck, so we were just about to head up and out of the park and back to the car when they announced, "3rd place, Jillian Shumaker." Whaaat? I was still feeling a little discombobulated, and I never quite manager to place in anything basically ever, but it quickly clicked that I had managed to place in the Athena division! Holy crap!

Of course, by the time this had all processed in my brain they'd moved on to the next group of medals, so I had to wait at the table nearby for someone to go grab it for me and verify I'd heard them correctly. I'm still waiting to see if the results are up online with the heavyweight division called out - as of now, they're not, so I may not get to see how many other ladies I was up against, but hey - a medal! That's pretty cool.

So all in all, a pretty great race day for me despite the crashy weirdness in the middle of it. I can only hope for another excellent cool day next year and see if I can smash my own record again!