Harrisburg 5k 2011

By: Stacey Hien

A short race deserves a short report -

I ran the Harrisburg 5K this morning in the rain accompanied by my 13 y.o (Colin), and my 9 y.o.(Garrett).  I asked Colin to run with Garrett to keep him safe and on course.  This didn’t work out too well since Garrett took off and left his brother and ran a stellar 25:37 and Colin ran a 32 something.  Colin did just have surgery on his ankle 2 months ago and is still limping but I thought he would have been able to keep up with Garrett – I was wrong.  Proud of both my sons.

Onto my race – it was raining when we got up and I considered for a moment to cancel and stay in bed but Garrett was so looking forward to it and popped up out of bed when I woke him.  We got to the race and it started pouring – no umbrellas.  Lovely start to race day.

At the start of the race it was still raining but not as hard.  After a prayer from our minister, Dave Henderson, we were off.  Harrisburg is a great course, mainly flat with one nice uphill, but nothing too steep.  If there were any more uphills I don’t remember them. I wanted to run a good race and my strategy was to run as fast as I felt I could and hold that pace for as long as I could.  I felt great the entire time, my achilles did not ache and I felt like I was running a good pace.  I kept looking at my watch in disbelief that I was running between 7:25’s and 7:55’s.  I felt good so I went with my original strategy to just run a fast pace until I felt like I couldn’t run that pace anymore.  Well, that point never came and my last .1 was a 7:15.  I ran a negative split race (can I say that for a 5K?)  Each mile got faster and faster and I felt great.  Now I did want to puke when I crossed the finish line and I do feel as though I pushed myself hard but considering everything I felt great.  I PR’d today with a 24:05, 7:45 pace! It’s a great hometown race and there were over 100 people from my church there so it was great to see so many familiar faces. I would have lost any bet with anyone who told me I could run that pace for 3.1 miles!!  A special thanks to the Tuesday Track Club for your inspiration on the track – speedwork really does work!!