2015 Clause Cause 5k Race Recap

Happy Sunday everyone! This is shaping up to be a good weekend because we are heading to Waterton for some hiking today and yesterday I met my goal running the 2015 Clause Cause 5k.

Cat and I signed up for the Seawheeze Half Marathon next year so we have lots of time to train and work up our mileage. Running the Clause Cause was the kick off to our training. Now, regular readers know that I am challenged when it comes to distance running. Even in high school cross country when I was in amazing shape I just couldn’t figure out a race pace and my PR in a 5k is 29:30- VERY slow by HS xc standards!

We were very fortunate because it wasn’t that cold. It was -3 I believe with a cold wind. But in years past it has been way colder for this race and the sun was shining.

I set a goal to run the first two miles in 20 minutes, meaning a 10 minute mile pace. My natural pace is a slow 12 min/mile and I’ve been pushing myself in training to speed up a little. I had my Garmin so that I could glance down and make sure I was on pace throughout the race.

MILE 1

I started off fast. Everyone else in the corral started quickly and I wanted to keep up with them. I instantly began to breath heavy and wheezy because for some reason I have a hard time breathing in cold air. I glanced down and saw I was running at an 8 min/mile pace and I forced myself to slow down because I knew I couldn’t keep up that pace.

MILE 2

My legs felt fine and I found running at 10 min/mile to be very comfortable for my legs but I was breathing so hard it was almost embarrassing! People probably thought I was asthmatic.

MILE 3

When I hit the 3 mile mark I look down and saw that I had just made it in my goal of 20 minutes. I let myself walk for a bit and attempted to catch my breath. That was a mistake because my legs started to get really heavy and when I was ready to run again all I could muster was a sprinter shuffle. This is also when my right knee started to have sharp pains.

I had a secondary goal of running the last mile in my usual 12 minutes and just missed it with 13 minutes-.

I finished in 33:12 (in 2012 I ran this race in 36:11). I don’t know how I placed because the results haven’t been posted online yet. Maybe we should have stuck around to find out.

Afterward, Cat and I headed to Brown’s Social House for brunch and hours of chatting over bottomless coffee. It made for an awesome day!

Time to hit the treadmill until spring because man running in the cold is not my thing!