When I got up this morning at 6:30 am, I went directly to my computer to check the weather in Chattanooga:  29 degrees Fahrenheit.  Well, I’d rather run in the cold than run in the heat…but this cold?  Shelley and I arrived at the course around 8:00 am and things were already looking better.  The frost was off the ground and the sun was already working it’s magic.  I was ready to run my first race in training for the Nashville Marathon next April.

The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network folks had done a great job putting together this event.  A band was playing, clowns were tying balloon animals and there was plenty of purple around in t-shirts, gifts, balloons and banners.  Many of the runners and walkers were attending in honor of someone they knew who has or had pancreatic cancer.  I’m not sure of the total attendance, but I estimated it was over 500.  Maybe 300+ would be running or walking the 5K.

As we neared the start of the race, it felt warm enough to run in shorts with a technical shirt and my wonderfully purple race shirt.  I kept my gloves on, remembering my experience from Wednesday’s training run.

So here I am ready to start the race, sizing up my competition.  I figure I’ve got a chance against the guy with the sign in front of me.  Really, how fast can you run with a sign attached to a tennis racquet?  Looking at this photo I can see that I need to either 1) keep working on the weight loss, 2) and/or improve my posture.  But hey, this blog is about honesty.  So here I am, bad posture and extruding belly waiting for the race to start.  Soon after this photo, the race coordinators informed us that we were facing the wrong direction.  So, I turned around and got ready to race.  The temperature was now a pleasant 44F.

The race was an out and back run from the First Tennessee Pavilion next to the UTC football stadium to a turnaround near the Tennessee River.  Given that I had not run any speed workouts or races for nearly 10 years, I didn’t know for sure what to expect.  I wore my heart monitor to track how things were going during the run.  I had no problem keeping my heart rate between 88 – 95% of my HRmax.  This is where I had decided I wanted to run the 5K.  I will use a lower HR zone for longer runs.

I was surprised how dead my legs felt for most of the run.  The hills were insignificant (except a short climb right before the finish), so I can’t blame that.  I think my body is simply not used to moving at such a fast pace (okay, fast by my standards).  Other than feeling like my legs didn’t want to keep up, I felt fine for the run.

As you can see from the above photo, I was winning the race here on the final sprint.  It seems that the 100+ people who were ahead of me all dropped out after 3.1 miles.  In the photo I had just finished that last little hill you see behind me and had about 80 yards to sprint to the finish.  I was quite pleased as I could see I would be finishing the race under the 31 minute goal I had set.

I crossed the line with the official clock saying 30:47 and my watch saying 30:22.  The difference was the time between the start of the race and when I crossed the starting line.  We wore timing chips, so the official time will probably be on the Internet in the next week or so.

I had pushed hard the last couple hundred yards, and my body was showing it.  My pulse at the finish line was 179 BPM and my breathing was quite hard.  As usual for me after a run like this, I had a bad cough that lasted for a few minutes.    After the finish turned in my timing chip and walked back to meet my coach, photographer, wife and one-person cheering section.

Overall, it was a great morning.  I had a good run and felt great afterward.  I got to help the cause of pancreatic cancer treatment and see the importance of this cause for many people who had been affected in some way.  It reminded me of the importance of the reason I am running the Nashville Marathon and the children of St Jude Children’s Hospital.

I’m now going to start adding some speed workouts to my training starting with one workout every two weeks (when I’m not racing).  My next race will be the Lookout Mountain 10K trail run on December 17, 2011.  I’m excited because both of my sons will be visiting from California for Christmas.  They will be joining Shelley to cheer me on at the 10K run.

Thanks for reading my blog and following my effort to finish a marathon.  Only 168 more days before I head to Nashville and achieve this lifetime goal.