Five: the gateway mile.

On Saturday, I ran the Down's Park 5-mile race, the second-to-last in the 2010 Striders' champ series. It was a great race through a beautiful park (see borrowed-from-internet photo above), and it reminded me of one of the ancillary benefits of marathon training: the marathon makes anything shorter than a marathon feel really easy!

Running this 5-miler through a park reminded me of my first 5-miler through a park, which took place just about one year ago. In my November 4th post, I mentioned that, as of a year ago, I had never run more than 3 miles. My good friend Corinne made a comment on how I wasn't even a runner year ago, which is both true and not true. I have been running for a long time, but that 5-mile race was probably the day I first felt like a "real runner." A brief history:

When I was in high school, I used to take long, solitary walks around my parents' neighborhood in order to get out of the house and clear my head. When I graduated from college in 2001 and moved back in with my parents, I resumed those walks and started mixing in a little running. Gradually, I started to do runs with a little walking, as opposed to walks with a little running. This pattern remained the same for a long time, though the setting varied depending on where I was living.

From 2004-2007, when I was at Yale, I started running on the elevated track in the amazing Yale gym. My fondness for that gym combined with the flexibility of being a graduate student meant that I started running a lot more. Then, I found myself a boyfriend who was a very accomplished runner, and he convinced me to enter my first races. In 2006 and 2007, I did my first two 5K's. I didn't manage to finish either of them without walking, but they got me over my fear of races.

Then came the dark period. Winter of '07-summer of '09 was a pretty rocky time in my life. A series of events, including the break-up with aforementioned boyfriend, left me unmotivated to do much of anything beyond work and school. I totally fell off the wagon with all exercise, including running. In July of '09, my rebound relationship from the runner ended rather abrubtly and I decided I needed to focus on myself for awhile. Among other things, that meant getting back in decent physical shape.

In August '09, I joined my neighborhood gym, the terrific Annapolis Athletic Club. As I have written previously, I took to exercise this time in a way I never had before. I was much more focused, committed and disciplined. I started out with weight training and running on a treadmill. In October '09, I entered my third 5K. My performance in that race was dissapointing, so I started working harder on the treadmill. By mid-November, I could run for 45 minutes to an hour without stopping and I decided to look for a longer race.

I was aware of the Annapolis Striders running group through some runner friends, and I knew that they have a race every year called the "Cold Turkey 10K." Given the name- cold turkey-I assumed that this race happened after Thanksgiving. So, at the start of my Thanksgiving break, I looked up the race info and learned that it actually happens the week before Thanksgiving. (I guess the turkey is cold because its still frozen!) I had already missed it. Fortunately, Thanksgiving week is a very popular time for races. I did a Google search and found a 5-miler happening the Saturday after Thanksgiving: the "Turkey Burnoff," hosted by Montgomery Country Road Runners. I decided to give it a shot.

I'll save the full story of that race for later this month, when I plan to run it for the second time. For now, I'll just say that I was incredibly nervous before that race and had no idea if I would even be able to finish. When I did manage to finish- without walking at all- it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I literally could not stop smiling for days. Five miles felt like some kind of dividing line which seperated the casual "run a little, walk a little" types from the "real runners," and I had crossed over. As soon as I crossed that barrier, I wanted to see how much further I could go. That race set me on the path that led, in only 11 months, to finishing a marathon.   

MCRR's Turkey Burnoff 2011 is happening this year on Saturday, 11/27, and I am already looking forward to my triumphant return. Its a really fun race, with 5 and 10-mile options through a beautiful park, so let me know if you want to come along! The Cold Turkey 10K is a great race too (I hear)- just remember that it happens on November 21, the Sunday before Thanksgiving!