Marshfield St Patrick's Day 5K

Knowing I had the New Bedford Half Marathon coming up on Sunday, I tried to take it pretty easy during the week. I took Monday night off and just did yoga. Tuesday, I ran a decent 13 mile run through Tamworth and Madison on a course I hadn't done in awhile. It was a good run except for 2 miles of straight ice on High St. which really slowed me down. I couldn't decide whether to just turn around or not, so I just kept going. Happy with this run. I ran the usual 5 on the treadmill on Wednesday, and then two trail runs to finish out Thursday and Friday. One on the completely clear trails in the Green Hills and then the second one on the barely-clear trails of the Moat Mineral Site. And that was where being smart ended...

Going to New Bedford meant I was going to need help with John. I wasn't going to leave him hanging out there, although I could have because Andy Schachat offered to let John hang out at his announcing table anytime I was in a bind and he was announcing. It was such a long race, though, so I decided that it was best to ask John's grandparents, who live in Marshfield, Ma, if he could stay with them while I raced. And it just so happened that it was also the weekend of the Marshfield St Patrick's Day 5K.

John was invited to his aunt and uncle's post-race annual party, sooooo since we were going to be there, I made the mistake of racing the 5K. I had raced it twice before and was lucky enough to come in 2nd one year, winning $250. A chance at prize $ made it worth a try. However, I knew that I had no chance of that as soon as I got to the starting line and saw 3 New Balance Boston women step into the chute. Hahaha. I should have bowed out then and saved my legs, but, no, that's not something I would ever do, so I didn't. The race this year had opposite winds with the first half being against a really strong, cold headwind. There is one short hill at the start, followed by a decent downhill and flat until it turns the corner and hits a long (maybe a mile?), but gradual uphill. I ended up in 5th place woman right away and, once again, contemplated just dropping out because what was the benefit for the next day? Nothing. But I kept going. I was racing pretty hard, but when I saw my first mile split, I knew the wind was a factor. The effort should have been about 5 seconds faster than the 5:58, but I had run the whole course for my warm up and knew that the second half of the race had a great tailwind! The second mile was still slower at 6:09, but half of that was still in the headwind. It was the last mile in the tailwind that really made up the pace back to a 5:59. The wind made the uphill effort seem easy, so I felt good about the way I was racing. I passed the 4th woman (who would turn out to be one of my CMS teammates) with maybe .4 or so to go. I was way behind 3rd. I kept pushing hard because I thought I might out kicked by the woman I had just passed, but I was instead out kicked by a completely different woman just before the finish line to finish 5th, right where I started, in 18:47. I was pretty happy with that. I felt I hadn't left anything on the course. In hindsight, I should have left everything on the course and not run it all, but I tend to make bad decisions. Haha.

Finished first in my age group winning this hat and $100 gift card to Whole Foods. I was psyched.

As soon as I finished, I kept running right back to the house. John was walking the race with his grandparents and had gotten all dressed up. I wanted to grab my phone and run back out there to get some pictures, but when I walked in the house, John was sitting in there already. He got his second DNF at this race after dropping at the half mile point. Haha. No reason to go back out, so I decided to get in the shower right away before everyone got back to the house. 

John all dressed up for the race

As soon as family got back, I left John with them to enjoy the party. I used to stay, but now, it's just a little awkward. Everyone was super nice to me and treating me just like I was still family, but I just didn't really want to stay and relive the past. I needed to take care of the dogs anyway, so I took them out for a walk, and then drove down to New Bedford to pick up my bib# and shirt. I stayed for a nice lunch with beer since I was STARVING by this point.

When I got back into town, I walked the dogs again, grabbed some dinner, picked up John at the party and then went back to John's grandparents' house for the night. I felt great, like I hadn't raced at all. Little did I know...

First walk with the dogs

Second walk with the dogs by the North River