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Scare Away Brain Cancer Race Recap 2012

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I ran the Scare Away Brain Cancer 5k today, and was 2nd female in 17:39. I didn’t know it at the time, but the woman who beat me, by about 2 seconds, was Canadian steeplechaser Dana Buchanan (10:02 steepler and winner of Canadian Olympic Trials). I didn’t know she was living here in Rochester, but am excited for another speedster in town!

scare away brain cancer 2012

Peace… and second place.

Last night Jeff and I were able to go out to dinner because my in-laws were in town for the night. While I wanted to eat some pasta at home like I usually do for 5k distance, I also wanted to take advantage of the night and eat at one of our favorite restaurants The Owl House. So, out to dinner we went. I knew this would come back to haunt me. I had water, vegan bruschetta, and the Buffalo Stance sandwich (which is like a buffalo chicken sandwich but vegan – spicy seitan sandwich).

We got home and Currie was having a rough time. I’m getting a cold so I wanted to get good sleep. Unfortunately good sleep wasn’t in the plan for the night. 6:03am came too soon!

iphone alarm

I went with the regular almond butter sandwich and 40 oz of water but drank one cup of green tea instead of coffee, mostly because we are out of coffee and I didn’t want to walk 2 blocks to Starbucks in the rain.

We got to the race, and I ran just over a mile warmup with Jeff because we were running a little late on time. I noticed my calves were a bit tired and my glutes, super high by my hip bones, were sore. I’m not sure why, but my guesses would be either:

  • The 10 strides I did as part of my run on Thursday before driving for 8 hours.
  • The higher mileage I started 2 weeks ago.
  • The general lack of stretching this week.
Back to the race: I did some dynamic stretching and some strides and it was time for the gun to go off. I actually know this race course, even though I haven’t done this race before, because it uses the same USATF certified course as a race I ran in the summer of 2011.
The first mile was rough for me. I was feeling out of sorts and was about 20 meters behind the first 2 ladies at the one mile mark. I ran a 5:40. Somewhere in the second mile, though it was more of an uphill mile, I started feeling good. I decided to catch the first 2 ladies. I got them by the 2nd mile, which was a 5:49 (more uphill), I went back and forth with the girl who won on the last mile, the whole time dry heaving and gagging. My food last night didn’t sit well. I felt like my legs and lungs had more to give, but my stomach didn’t. I was fighting angry bowels and a queasy stomach most of the race. My last mile was a 5:36, then 34 seconds for the close. I was very happy.
After the race I did 3 miles at 6:2x. I felt great other than the stomach problems. I did a slow mile then headed back for some food.
scare away brain cancer
There was quite a bit of food but by the time I got done with my workout and cooldown, there wasn’t much left. I ate 2 bites of a veggie/cheese/mayo sandwich and a had a small cup of coffee, got my awards (medal, Nalgene water bottle, $150), chatted a bit, and headed home.
scare brain cancer away awards 2012

A few things to note:

  • Did you notice my 99 cent “throw-away” white gloves in the picture at the beginning of this post? Some lady actually yelled “nice gloves” in an enthusiastic voice during the race. I sure hope she was talking about my Oiselle armwarmers!
  • I wore my Garmin during the race, never looked at it until I got home, but it sure was nice to have splits automatically taken. (I usually don’t race in a Garmin, superstition.)
  • There were just over 500 people in the race today.
  • We had to slow considerably on each turn (there were quite a few turns) because it rained last night and there were lots of leave on street corners. I was worried someone would trip, but I didn’t see any falls in front of me. People were being very cautious. Wet leaves are treacherous!
  • It was about 50 degrees with a slight mist during the race. I couldn’t have asked for better racing weather. I was worried about it being really cold and rainy, but we got very lucky.

There you have it! How is your weekend of racing shaping up?! Good luck to everyone racing on Sunday!