This past Saturday morning I ran the Chickamauga Chase. Usually I find it hard to drag myself out of bed on Saturdays (since I don't have to be at work), but the anticipation of the race woke me before my alarm did.
15 kilometers seemed like a really long distance to run (9.3 miles) until I started running. The sun was shining, it was about 12 degrees Celcius (low 50s Fahrenheit), a moderate breeze was blowing, and there were lots of other folks running with me. I started out too fast, finishing the end of the first mile a minute and a half sooner than I'd intended to, so I started looking for someone to pace with.
Around the three mile mark I found a guy and girl (John and Michelle, who I later found out were up from Atlanta) who passed the mark and commented to each other that they were doing nine-minute miles and wanted to keep that up until mile 7.5 or 8, and then increase their speed 10 to 20 percent, so I said hi and asked if I could run with them to keep pace.
The three of us ran together to mile 8, and then pushed forward. I think I understand a little more now why longer distance runners always say that distance running is mental-- you just keep going. I pushed ahead of my fellow runners and crossed the finish line to a time of 1:23:31. Michelle came in about 20 seconds after me and John about a minute after me.
Talking with John and Michelle afterwards I learned that they are both lawyers in Atlanta, and were both running in the 35 to 39 year old age group. I'm excited to have finished the race, with energy left over, and I had loads of fun running it, but its humbling to realize that I was running in pace with folks about 10 years my seniors, and that in the 1 to 19 year old age group an 11 year old boy from Hixson beat me by about 16 minutes.
Run a 15k race sometime. Its fun.
Posted by swanson at april 5, 2004 11:02 EM