If it's Monday (which it is), it must be time for another helping of Fitness Monday, a community series for health and fitness support.
Future Fitness Monday hosts needed. Yes, I'm looking at YOU! Lots of room on the calendar. To sign up to host, go to Gmail and sign in as FitnessMonday. Pw is exercise. Click on the calendar, pick a Monday and claim it with your username.
I'm writing today about my first two 5K races, having been encouraged to do so by fiddler crabby a couple of weeks ago. The first was on Valentine's Day this year, two weeks after I turned 41. The second had an added element of fundraising: the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Madison, WI on May 30th, raising money for breast cancer education and research.
Here's hoping that other folks who might be new to running, or to racing, might pick up something of use from my newbie experiences and tips, presented here since they're still so fresh in my mind. Other more experienced racers will surely have even more to contribute in the comments!
So I started running in late October, using the Couch to 5K plan as a training guide. (More about that journey and what got me running in the first place in the Fitness Monday I wrote a couple months ago.)
I had not initially intended to race, as slow as I knew I was going to be. I just wanted the exercise and the accomplishment of getting myself to the 5K mark.
But then I encountered a friend from church who was contemplating a running program as she approached her 40th birthday. She wanted to actually run races, to better her time over the course of the year, and persuaded me to join her.
First Tip: Races are for anyone who wants to run, and nobody will notice that you don't know what you're doing.
Ideally at that first race on Valentine's Day, I would have had a running buddy who'd raced before. Failing that, at least I had another newbie to navigate things with. In fact, I had four someone-elses; my friend's husband and sons ran too. But even if you go all by yourself, there will always be other first-timers. And plenty of other slow-timers. It was helpful to me to look at past results posted online, to see what the times at the back of the pack looked like. (It's also nice to see how many racers there are likely to be.)
If you're someone who does not want your real name on the web any more often than you can help, be aware that many races do indeed post results online. Consider registering with initials or nickname if this is a concern to you.
Second Tip: Different races use different timing mechanisms.
Smaller races will likely have only a "gun" time, meaning that the clock starts when the starting gun goes off, and your official time will be recorded by a human being as you cross the finish line. The issue with this is that it takes a fair amount of time for a hundred (or several hundred) people to cross the start line. If your actual time matters to you, make sure to wear a digital watch and time yourself. Also remember to look at the big clock as you cross the finish line! In a race with only a gun time, you will likely be wearing a number-bib with a detachable tab. Make sure you don't pin that tab onto your shirt; you'll have to rip it off and hand it to a timekeeper after you cross the finish line.
This is how the Valentine's 5K was run. It took me about 15 seconds to get across the start line. It seemed that someone had forgotten to bring the starting gun -- instead of a bang, all we got was someone yelling "Ready, set, The Gun!" Rather confusing.
The other more hi-tech kind of timing is "chip timing". With chip timing you're given either a disposable RFID tag or a chip that you must return after the race. Either way, you wear it on your shoe and it records when you cross a starting pad and a finish pad. The Race for the Cure used disposable tags. I liked the exact, official nature of it!
Third tip: If you know you're going to be slow, start near the back of the pack.
I had to do this for myself at the Valentine's Day race. The Race for the Cure had a lovely extra bit of organization, though, in that they had volunteers holding signs. Near the front of the pack, the signs read, "Serious Runners." Around the middle of the pack, the signs read, "Not So Serious Runners." Toward the back, the signs read, "I May Never Do This Again!" My friends and I stationed ourselves in the not-so-serious section, which turned out just fine.
Fourth tip: Try not to get too excited and "over-run" the first part of the race.
I was very good about this on Valentine's Day. I schooled myself to my usual pace, let lots of people pass me, and ended up running the first mile at almost exactly the 11-minute pace I was aiming for. It left me room to speed up a little as I got comfortable, and I finished in 33:15, at a 10:42 pace.
The Race for the Cure was a different thing. There were a couple thousand runners and the energy level was incredibly high. Such positivity and celebration! It felt like the whole route was lined with cheerleaders, including a literal cheer team doing stunts to urge us on! I got swept up, running easily and well I thought, aiming for a 10-minute mile pace which I knew I could do. As the one-mile marker approached, I noticed a stitch in my side. Unusual at this stage of the race, I mused... and then I checked my watch as I passed the marker. I'd run the dang first mile in 8:20. Oops.
I pulled it out though. Finished in 30:44, at a 9:55 overall pace per mile. Woohoo!
My next 5K, I want to run under 30:00...
Fifth Tip: Fundraising is not a necessary component of racing. But it can be a rewarding thing to do.
Some races have no fundraising component at all. (The Valentine's Race was like that.) Others raise money just through the registration fees and corporate donations. Still others, like the Race for the Cure, you can either let your registration be your donation, or you can raise funds on top of that.
The fundraising aspect of the Race for the Cure was an extra wrinkle for me. I do NOT like asking people for money, and generally go far out of my way to avoid doing so. But I wanted to take advantage of the "I'm over 40 and doing my first fundraiser race" factor, and the Race for the Cure website made it SO easy. I could do it all online: register for the race, set up a fundraising page, and then make my pitch by e-mail. There are many people close to me who've battled breast cancer: step-mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, college roommate, on and on. For them, I could perhaps take a deep breath and try to make this race count for something.
It ended up counting for $670.00 -- so far. (It's not too late to chip in and make it count for even more... anybody wanna take me over $700?)
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UPDATE: Donation awesomeness to report! Donations now up to $725! (My online site isn't properly recording $20 of pre-race donations that were sent in by check, so it looks like $705 on the page.)
Thank you, thank you! By the way, though I placed 553rd among the 800-some chip-timed runners (and who-knows-where if you count the non-chip-timed runners), I'm now in 5th place as a fundraiser among chip-timed runners who were doing individual fund-drives!
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OK, that's probably enough about my thoughts and experiences. I'd encourage anyone who's thinking about working up to a 5K to go ahead and find yourself a race to try. It's an awesome feeling!
What other 5K racing tips do y'all have to share?