Strides For Scholarship 5K Archives - Run The Long Road Coaching

On Saturday I ran the Strides for Scholarship 5K for the second time. Last year I ran it for fun with my then 10-year-old niece. I loathe 5Ks but last year I ate the most amazing vanilla-frosted donut after the race. So the good outweighed the bad.

I also wanted to win the race – be 1st overall female. It’s rare that you find a small 5K – not in Bumblefuck, PA – where that opportunity presents itself. For some reason this race is relatively unknown despite a large running club just down the road.

I was nervous. I say all the time that I’d rather run 20 miles than race a 5K. 20-milers are within my comfort zone; 5Ks are not. But sometimes you need to push outside your comfort zone.

I warmed up for a mile and did some strides. I could feel the nervousness in my legs. They splurged on chip timing this year but I still made my way towards the front and took off.

M1 (7:00) – In hindsight this was probably a little too fast. I should have kept the pace around 7:10-7:15. I was in the lead though!

M2 (7:36) – Horrendous. Just past the mile 2 marker, a girl zipped right past me. Damn. I tried to stay with her and put some pressure on but my legs didn’t have enough kick. She ended up finishing 19-seconds ahead of me.

M3 (7:21) – I redeemed myself (somewhat).

22:30 (7:15 avg pace)
Overall: 7/85
Female: 2/41
AG: 2/9

My sister, sister-in-law, and 2 nieces ran the race too. We pretty much cleaned up when it came to the awards!

Sister: 2nd in AG
SIL: Almost 5-min PR from last year!
Nieces: 2nd and 1st in AG
*All coached by me!

Everyone had a great race and my vanilla-frosted donut did not disappoint!

Congrats to everyone who ran Chicago, Steamtown, Portland, or any other race I’m forgetting. Fall racing season is officially here!

Did you race this weekend?

10/3/11
6 miles / 52:50 / 8:48 avg pace

On Saturday, I ran the Strides For Scholarship 5K with my 10-year-old niece, Sarah. My sister-in-law, Desiree, also ran the race. This was Sarah’s second 5K. She told me she wanted to beat her previous time of 28:19 (which is pretty impressive). We also wanted to beat any 10-year-olds we saw out on the course. Sarah is pretty competitive 🙂

It was a beautiful and cool morning. This was only the second year for this race and there weren’t that many runners – maybe 50 at the start line? We later overheard someone say they had about 70 runners pre-register. This was by far the smallest 5K I had ever done.

The course was interesting. We ran around a local community college. The school is big but it was odd to dodge between students going to class. Sarah was a trooper. She asked if we could slow down a bit during mile 2. We slowed down for maybe 5 seconds before she announced “OK, I’m good. Let’s go”. We pushed during the last mile to get that PR but fell short by about 10 seconds. Our official time was 28:30. Sarah did amazing and everyone cheered for her.

My sister-in-law ran a great race too and came away with a huge 1-minute PR!

We hung around for the awards ceremony knowing there was a good chance Sarah would get a medal. The look on her face when they called her name for first place female, 12 and under, was priceless! She was shocked. I doubt that medal left her neck all day Saturday.

I was probably more shocked when they called my name for 3rd place female in my age group. Really?! Like I said, small race. I’ll take it though!

The post-race food spread was ridiculous. More like an ultramarathon rather than 5K. Starbucks, muffins, doughnuts, bagels, tomato pie, juice, etc. The race Ts are nice too. I can actually wear it in public.

The overall female finished in 23:22 (exactly my current PR from a hot and steamy Memorial Day race). Hmmm. I have no shame in entering a small 5K just to see if I could have a shot at first overall female. Agree or disagree? In Philly, the competition is tough. There are so many fast runners. The only way for me to place in a 5K or 10K is to seek out the smaller races.