Race Report: Scope It Out 5K, March 27, 2022

I ran the Scope It Out 5K this morning, finishing in a time of 22:11, which was good enough for second place female.

This 5K was the next installation in my recurring series of "put yourself in situations that trigger your wobbliness/whatever issues and force yourself to deal with it."  Two things that really aggravate my issues are running in groups and strong side or tailwinds.  This race promised to have both, so yay.  And I was supporting a cause - colorectal cancer research - that is very important to my good friend Jillian, so that was an extra bonus.

The race started at Freedom Plaza at 9:00 am.  I've done enough races at Freedom Plaza to know that you need to get there fairly early to get a decent parking space, so I left my home at 7:30 and found parking a bit before 8 am (after circling around a few times).  Then I put on my shoes and started warming up.

For this race, I decided to go with the New Balance RC Elite V.2.   This shoe has felt great at marathon effort, but arguably a bit soft and slow to turnover at anything harder than that.  However, I'm currently running 5Ks at my previous marathon pace, so I thought they were worth a shot.  Also in their favor - they are the only carbon plated shoes I seem to be able to handle right now.  Everything else is too unstable and bouncy.

***

I warmed up with my standard 15-20 minutes of jogging, followed by 3:00 at half-marathon effort, 4x30 seconds at 5K effort, and then 4x10 seconds at mile effort.  I noted a strong wind from the west that would be a tailwind to start and a headwind to end.  About the time I finished, I saw some old running friends (Jake, Brent, and David) and got to catch up with them, so that was nice.

Then we lined up, and after a moment of silence, the race started.  Mindful of my balance issues, I lined up on the far left side of the race start, so that I could angle off to the side and avoid most of the early race chaos.  Of course, what I hadn't planned on was a bunch of high school kids that were doing the whole "sprint, slowdown, swerve, sprint, slowdown, swerve" thing.  My first quarter mile of the race was spent navigating around them, which was both scary and exactly why I signed up for this race.  So I dealt with it.  

After that first quarter mile, things settled down, and I could relax into the action.  I had a very strong tailwind behind me (20 mph) and the course was also slightly downhill.  Both of these were balance challenges, but I was really happy with how well I handled them - I felt so much more stable than before.  Stable enough that I was able to look around for other women runners.  There was one woman about my age who I reeled in pretty easily, and another younger woman ahead.  For a while I was holding steady behind the younger woman, and I had some hope that perhaps she was going out too fast and I would be able to run her down later in the race.

Then we went around a turn and the tailwind became a crosswind, and I had to work a bit to stay on my feet.  Another turn, and we were back into the headwind for a quarter mile before a 180 around a turn.  At some point here, the younger woman started pulling away, and then I only had other men to run with and chase.

***

I'm familiar with this course - at least I thought I was.  My 5K pr was set in a race starting and ending at Freedom Plaza, just like this race.  However, somewhere in the second mile, the course took a right hand turn to route us near the Capitol - a bit of a surprise, but I went with it (I think Jillian told me this would happen, I just didn't process it).  

Eventually we made our way back to the course I knew, with a mile-long push up Pennsylvania Avenue into the headwind.  I had been running with 2 other men for most of the race, but once we hit the headwind, they fell back and I was solo for the last mile.   It took some digging into my mental tool box, but I was able to stay tough in that final mile and push to the finish.

I crossed the finish line as second female, stopped my watch, and checked it.  22:11 was the time - a bit of a shock (and not in a good way).  This race had honestly felt like a better and stronger performance than my last one.  I felt much more stable on my feet this time, and also felt like I was able to push harder as a result.  According to my Garmin, my heart rate was 180 or above for the last half-mile, and peaked at 183 - significantly higher than I saw in my last race.  At the same time I ran this 5K about a minute slower than my previous one - I wasn't expecting to see that number.    

In one sense, the time doesn't matter at all - I'm nowhere near PR shape, and my goal was truly to stay on my feet.  On the other hand, I had been fairly sure that I was going to run a bit faster than my previous 5K, so there was a moment's disappointment and doubt upon seeing that I had not come close to even that time.

But it is where I am.   I do feel really good about the fact that I felt so much more secure on my feet than I did before, and also that I was able to push myself a bit harder.  

***

I never saw mile markers 1 or 2 for the race, so I could only take a manual split for mile 3.  My Strava of course broke down my splits by mile - from that I see that my splits were:

Mile 1: 6:51
Mile 2: 7:01
Mile 3: 6:54
last .20: 1:25

(Strava/my Garmin say the course was 3.20 in length.  I don't think this version of the Freedom Plaza 5K course is certified, so maybe it was this long).

Other notes:

• The temps were great for this race - 45 degrees.  The wind did make things colder.  I wore thin tights and a tank top plus arm-warmers, and that felt like the right clothing choice.
• I talked some friends into watching me as I finished, and got some valuable feedback.  Apparently I'm not rotating my hips when I run - so that's something else to consider and work on.
• On reflection, I don't think I like the RC Elite V2s for this distance (which matches what pretty much all the reviewers have said).  I think it's back to my Takumi Sens for this distance until I get my stability in a better place and can start using Vaporflies again.
• I got to cooldown with a group of friends (Rachel, Brent, and Jake) after.  It was really fun to catch up with them.