My First 5K Race

I ran my first 5K race yesterday. This was not the first time I have a 5K before, just the first time in an actual race. I have actually run more than a 5K non-stop. Thus far my maximum length running nonstop has been about 3.6 miles. My official time for this 5K was 40:51.3. There were many people walking or walking and running in the race, so I was not last. I was definitely one of the last nonstop runners though. I really don’t care how slow I was. Sure, I’d like to be faster, but running over three miles nonstop is a major personal achievement for me. I’m 40 years old, and for the first time in my life, I can run three miles nonstop. I have never been in good enough shape to do that. I exercise on my elliptical machine almost everyday for an hour. I’ve been exercising on my elliptical machine for years, although I have been getting more and more diligent about intensity and how often I exercise in recent years. However, road running is different from running on an elliptical machine. One of the reasons I like my elliptical machine is there is no impact. There is definitely impact with road running, and I have to be careful to not injure myself, especially my knees. However, for numerous reasons, a month or so ago, I realized I needed to increase and diversify my exercise routine, so I started road running once or twice a week. I started with short lengths: first a little over a mile, then next week, two miles, then the next week three miles. Since then I’ve been increasing it incrementally by adding a couple of tenths of mile. What was strange to me when I first started road running was realizing that my heart and lungs were perfectly fine during the run. Exercising on my elliptical machine had prepared my heart and lungs just fine for road running. It used to be that I could only run for short lengths before getting out of breath and have to switch to walking. Now as I have started running more what slows me down and to a certain extent hurts me is my legs not liking this whole impact thing. Therefore, I run slow, steadily, and within my capabilities. I run to improve my fitness, and I am slowly getting better at road running as I do it more.

I decided to enter a 5K race to have a goal and see how I compare with other runners. I also first decided to enter a 5K because it was Run or Dye, and it looks like a blast. That race is not until June though. Later I signed up for the race I ran yesterday, Arlington’s Turtle Trot, because it was within walking distance of my house, and it raises money for my local wildlife center’s turtle rehabilitation program. I had no delusions that I would win this or even be competitive. Again, I’m slow, and I am fine with that. What I learned today is that I am really slow, but I am slow and steady as I knew I was, and I am improving. I also learned that some runners and walkers have absolutely no knowledge of outdoor running etiquette.

The Turtle Trot was a very family friendly, small, community type race. There were many children running the race along with adults. There were some adults running with children in strollers and running with their also running children. There were adults running in a competitive manner and adults like me just running to say they did it. The race was on the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) trail, a very popular paved hike and bike trail that varies from about six to eight feet in width. This is where the problems arose (in my opinion). Participants just gathered at the start with little sorting. The people who were trying to be competitive did seem to gather more at the start, but the people who were planning to walk did not do that much sorting to stay at the back. I stood near the middle. I was trying to avoid the crush of real runners at the front. As the race started, I walked to the start line letting the pack get going first, and as the race was chip timed, it really didn’t matter that I was delayed in crossing the start line. For the first tenth of a mile or so, I tried to let real runners behind me easily pass, and I tried to quickly pass the walkers in front of me. Then after a few tenths of a mile as racers were still sorting themselves out, the race route went from Four Mile Run trail to the much more popular W&OD trail. As with any Saturday morning, the W&OD is populated with bikers, runners, walkers, and their dogs. This made for an even more crowded race route, and this is where my (and I would wager other participants’) problems really began.

On the W&OD, you need to be courteous and allow others to pass you when they are faster, stick to the right if possible especially when you are slow, and politely and quickly pass others being cognizant that someone else may want to pass you as you pass others. I walk (with and without my dog), run, and bike on the W&OD often. I’m used to these rules of shared space courtesy and happily accept it because I enjoy using this trail. Some of the participants in the Turtle Trot either do not accept these rules of common courtesy or are really obtuse. There were some participants and some people simply using the trail who made it difficult to pass them, especially some who were participating in groups of more than two and thus taking up the entire side and then some of the trail. There were two female participants who absolutely drove me crazy for the first half of the race. They were walking/running along side each other. They would run faster than me for a bit and pass me. Then they would walk, and I would have to pass them. As they were taking up the entire right side of the trail, I would have to pass them on the left side, which often meant waiting until it was free from opposing cyclist/pedestrian traffic. Then shortly after I pass them, evidently because I was running so slow, they would start running again, pass me, then start walking again. This nonsense went on every five or ten minutes or so, for almost the entire first half of the race, until finally, thankfully, they either stopped their running sprints or I as a steady, slow runner had gotten far enough ahead of them to avoid them. To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with walkers who do running sprints. I used to exercise like this before I was able to run nonstop. I think it is a great way to get your heart rate up while walking if you can’t yet run for extended periods. I wouldn’t even have a problem with them doing this in the race if they were not walking along side each other and had courtesy of others around them. If they were walking single file, it would have been much easier to pass them. There were others who did similar type things, which also got annoying, but they seem to pass me less, or it was one person not in a group, who could thus then pass me or allow me to pass him/her more easily. There were also children in the race, some not running alongside adults. Many of them were also walking then sprinting with some of them doing this in an unpredictable manner such that it became difficult to know if a child was going simply stop right in front of me causing me to have to quickly swerve around them. Some of the children also passed on the right or left in groups and just plain ran in unpredictable ways. I can forgive the children a lot easier. They’re children; they may not know better, and well, they were acting like children. All of this made for some serious frustrations during the race. I’m sure it doesn’t sound like it, but I actually like the diversity of people in the race. I like that there were children, walkers, and noncompetitive runners. Exercise is so important, and I think it’s great that people of all ages are out there exercising. Also, having other people in the race who had no anticipation of winning the race gives me as a slow runner encouragement to enter races to improve my personal time and to have fun, as fun runs should be.

Overall I enjoyed my first 5K. I am glad I did it, and I hope many turtles will be helped by my entry fee. I hope to keep improving in my fitness and running and perhaps run a few more races in the future simply as a goal to improve my time, especially when the entry fees help a cause I support. I just hope my future race organizers will better communicate to participants about race courtesy and most importantly that my future fellow participants will practice race and shared space courtesy.