My First Road Race: I did it!

By now you must have heard that I finished my first five-mile race at St. Malachi on Saturday. The gun went off at 9:45 a.m. on the corner of West 25th and Main Ave. in Cleveland, and I crossed the finish line on Washington Ave. about 45 minutes and 3 seconds later.

I'm not going to lie to you: it was a great time. My step-father and I made it to St. Malachi by 9:30 to pick up our chips. We stretched a bit inside; I thought long and hard about eating a free banana (but I didn't); and then we hung out on a hill until the gun suddenly went off and we started running.

The interesting thing about the race is that it starts and ends on a hill. The unfortunate thing is that it starts downhill and it ends uphill.

Before the race began I drilled it into my head that I had to watch my pace. Anyone who knows me (or has read about me) is aware of my problem with pacing… and racing. Especially when faster people are around. So, my goal in this race was twofold: 1) finish; 2) run at a consistent pace. I managed to accomplish both.

Around 8 minutes, I rounded the first mile marker and figured I should slow myself down if I ever intended to make it up that final hill. But I definitely got ahead of myself there: when I turned the corner I smacked right into the first big hill of the race (OK, big for me; I've been running on the track for the past month!).

I ran in the middle of the pack, so at least half of the people around me were taking that hill and, well, the rest were being taken. It reminded me of that scene in Titanic in which the bow of the ship turns perpendicular to the water and all of the people start sliding down the deck. Granted, there was no sliding, but people were stopping, walking and dropping like flies. The peer pressure almost got to me (I thought: "oh, how nice—and easy too—would it be to take a walking break right now?"), but I continued to run.

Get the rundown on the run up that final hill (and all the hills before it) in my blog, Iron G in 2015.