Dreadmill for Brian and Knapp. The breaking in of the Saucony Omni 8's return a positive review. (Nike and Apple aren't the only products this blog endorses)
As our brave runners patiently await their debut, the rain has halted training for another day. In the meantime, I wanted to stress a couple race day pointers.
A couple of weeks before:
Most races occur at 8 am, meaning you have to wake up at 6, drive to the race, warm up and be ready to run at 8. Luckily for some of these kids, this race starts at 11:15 am a mile away. Get used to waking up around 9 am on Sunday.
The night before:
You picked up your bag of goodies, shirt, and bib number (right?).
Look at your log. No, not that log. Your running log. If everything went according to plan, you put in the work and will do just fine.
Lay out all your running gear for the am. You don't want to scramble for your lucky socks or shirt and stress out. We already have enough stress of running 3.1 miles.
Set 2 alarms (or have a handful of other runners in your house)
I don't know how reliable my memory is but I remember seeing something about young Native American warriors who would drink a ton of water the night before a battle so that they'd have to wake up to take a #1. I believe I did that for my first race.
The am:
Eat a small breakfast so you are not dying around race time. Don't carbo load like Michael Scott; this is a 5k, not a marathon.
Evacuate all bodily functions; I have been reading about running for the past year and I don't want anyone pulling a Uta Pippig (funny name, serious results). What's "pulling a Uta Pippig" you say? In 1996, this female runner won the Boston Marathon...and had her monthly surprise from mother nature. I know none of us have the gall to:
a) finish first
b) keep going after something like that happened
Race Day:
Make sure to get to the race 30 minutes to an hour before. Again, we want to be stress-free pre-race.
Warm up with a slow jog for 5-10 minutes.
Remember that log you read? Yeah, you put in the work so if you have race day jitters, know you DID run before this.
When lining up, make sure you are not on the starting line; we are NOT that fast (yet). So either ask people what their paces are and line up accordingly or base it on the past year's finish times and estimate how many people should be in front of you.
...3.1 miles happens...
mile 1: SLOW DOWN. Adrenaline will be your worst enemy. Pacing means slowing down this mile. You'll want to be able to give it your all on the last mile so you can pass people and build up confidence at the same time.
In fact, follow a woman since they pace better
(that's right, PubMed used for running)
-there is a photographer on course; if you see him or her, try not to look like death (trust me, I've done it). Flash him the thumbs up. Or depending on how you feel, flash him some other finger.
When you see the finish, you are going to want to stop; don't do that because 10 other runners will run in to your backside.
If they ask, remove your chip for timing ( I think we don't have chips but some paper tag system)
And there you have it, you are done with your first 5k.
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