2019 IHM Nun Run 5K

It Was Supposed To Be A Tempo Run

Three weeks after my exhausting Dawn to Dusk to Dawn 50K, I do not yet feel fully recovered, and with a week until my next 24 hour race, Eagle Up 24, I need to treat this as a training run. I should be in taper mode, not racing. The plan is to run at a good tempo pace and not push for time - except in the unlikely case of bettering my time from two years ago.

Saturday morning started normally for a race day and with the race practically next door, I had plenty of time to eat breakfast, drink my coffee, and drive over to pick up my packet. Jogging over to the registration table I met one of the women from the Immaculata cross country team and her parents. I had wondered if I would see them this year since Michelle had graduated. I was more surprised to see two other women from the track team that I knew. I chatted briefly before picking up my packet and heading off for my warm up.

The warm up seemed comfortable, then I checked the time and pace. It was fast for me, so I consciously slowed down and added some walk breaks to be sure I kept the effort easy. A few strides to finish and I was done. It was a shorter than I'd planned, only 1.6 miles, but it was getting close to race time. In the prerace announcement I was dismayed to hear that they would not be stopping traffic as we crossed King Road, rather they would ask the runners to stop until there was a break in traffic. This happened two years ago as well and seriously broke my rhythm as we reach King Road at the bottom of a long hill where we can build up some momentum for a push over the last 600m.

The start is always a bit strange. Most of the field just stands around with very few actually up at the starting line ready to race. The race doesn't attract the normal racing crowd as indicated by only 5 finishers under 21:20 this year and a winning time of 18:12. It's mostly family and friends with ties to Immaculata University and Villa Maria Middle School where the race is held. There are also no age group awards. Being chipped timed none of this was a particular concern for me. Despite the small field of 227 including walkers, it still took me 11 seconds to reach the starting line, but being a chip timed race this was of no concern to me. I settled into pace approximately mid-pack as we follwed the drive around the school and headed down to King Road. After we crossed the road we tackled the first of eight hills on the course heading up to the university campus. The nuns had placed inspirational signs all along the course to help us up the hills. They also place signs at the mile markers. Mile one was near the bottom of the second hill on the course and both that and my Garmin agreed on a 10:28 split for the first mile. Despite most of my training being run the downhill and flats and walk the hills, I had no problems keeping my effort up the hills with only a nominal slowing of pace as expected. Mile 2 took us behind the library and onto Grotto Road, finally exiting that and turning up past Camilla Hall Nursing Home where the resident nuns were out in force cheering. That also took us up 2 more long hills and a couple short ones. The 2 mile mark is after a right turn past Camilla Hall. There was a slight discrepancy between running time at the split (20:54) and my Garmin which recorded the 2 mile split as 21:16. After a long straight and a couple turns I powered up the penultimate hill past Villa Maria Hall, the main building, and complete the campus loop bringing me back to the first hill which we now run down building up momentum for the final push after recrossing King Road. I could only hope I could time my run so I would not have to stop and lose all that momentum at the bottom of the hill. As I looked ahead I didn't see any group forming at the bottom of the hill, but I didn't heave a sign of relief until I was actually crossing the road. Now up the final hill on the drive approaching the 3 mile sign. This sign has to be misplaced since it's almost 400m from there to the finish and the total distance seems about right. I also don't think I ran a 10 minute mile even if I was beginning to push the pace. Rounding the final curve on the drive I could hear footsteps behind me, so I upped my effort a little bit more to not be passed in the final 50m. The clock time was 32:18 and the chip time 32:07. I was quite surprised as I had expected to run between 34 and 35 minutes. This was almost a full minute faster than two years ago, and I had not been running any dedicated speed work to prepare for a 5K. I also placed 112 of 227, but much to my surprise I was not the oldest finisher.

While I didn't think I had expended that much energy as I was running well within myself, or so it seemed, the first couple miles, I crashed hard in the afternoon. This next week has to be strongly focused on recovery to be reasonably fresh for Eagle Up 24. My goal there is to run at least 50 miles, but with the proviso that I get some nighttime running in the early hours of Sunday and not stop after 14-16 hours. After that I still have three more races in preparing for my goal race, North Coast 24.