Run for Julia 5K

I'm obviously way behind in my posting as this race took place on April 24. It was my first race after a 7 week layoff due to both my shoulder surgery and a nagging case of bronchitis. I believe I ran 2 or 3 times before the race. Boy, did my lack of training show. But more on that in a moment.

The race was held on a Thursday evening starting in Bluemont Park. I have run on this path several times so I can't complain about any lack of course knowledge. The course is nearly flat and the weather was close to perfect. However, the course is in Arlington and I was driving there from Tysons Corner so I had to deal with quite a bit of traffic getting there. I arrived 2 minutes before the posted start time. I ran to the starting line to sign up only to find that registration was 1/4 mile away! Off I jogged, hoping I dudnt wear myself out just trying to sign up.

It was an expensive race...$30 for late registration but they fortunately had a "no shirt" option for $20. I got through registration quickly and jogged back to the starting line. I didn't need to rush as a friend of "Julia" was speaking about her life as a runner and as a Peace Corp volunteer. She was murdered while serving in the Peace Corp in the Phillipines. Apparently, she was the victim of a robbery gone bad. It sounded like she was a special person.

I've run nearly 350 races over the past few years. While I used to get nervous before the start of every race, for the last few years I haven't felt that nervousness except for races that were 10 miles or longer. Not today though. My stomach was jumping up and down as I knew I wasn't really ready to run a race.

I took off with the slower runners and kept pace with them for the first 3/4 of a mile or so. I had to stop for my first walk break just short of the 1 mile mark. I had a pretty bad stitch in my right side. I walked for 90 seconds and then started running again. Ooops....not yet said my body. I now also had a stitch on my left side. I was forced to walk probably about half of the rest of the race. I would run for about 2 minutes and then walk for 2 minutes. With about 1/2 mile left some spectators yelled out that I was first among the walkers. I had to tell them the truth that I had run some. Oops there went my props. As always, I ran pretty hard for the last quarter mile as I tried to catch S. Jean Stewart, a 65 year old woman that had passed me shortly before the half way point. I started my kick far too late though and she beat me by 14 seconds. My time was a pitiful 37:58. I came in 138th out of 171. At least I set a number that I should be able to beat next time out.

Other runners of note in this race included
Adam Wytko 16:43 (winner)
Diana Tong 21:48 (female winner)
Bill Stahr 20:08
Jim Scarborough 22:40
Bob Platt 22:59
Shirley Sameshima 25:01
Bob Gurtler 31:49 (so much for my winning streak over Bob!)