I travelled to my hometown of Ottawa to do a 5K race with my dad who decided he also wanted to jump on the racing bandwagon I was already on. Unfortunately, I had a pretty terrible race, but he did really well!
I took the train to Ottawa the night before the race and stayed overnight at my parents. Unfortunately, the race wasn’t until 4 pm on Saturday so I had a lotttt of time to kill on Saturday. Most of which I spent it stressing out over the race. I wish the race had been early in the morning!
The 5K route would take us through part of Ottawa’s downtown core, down the canal, and then back up the other side of the canal with the finish line somewhere near city hall. The start of the race had a pretty sharp incline at the beginning, but it levelled off and was going to be pretty flat after that. I was hoping for a race time between 25-26 minutes. I knew this would mean that I would really have to push myself since my previous personal best was 27:25 and even taking a minute off that time was going to be strenuous. I was in the 25-30 minute corral, while my dad was one behind me with an expected timeslot of 30-35 for completion.
Unfortunately, things turned sour right off the bat. As the gun went off for the first corral to take off (the <25 minute group), they ushered the second group (mine) right after them with zero break between the two groups. This resulted in a crushing wave of people that FORCED us to walk for the first two and a half minutes of the race right after we crossed the start line (which is when all our chip timers started). A 5K is not particularly long, and 2.5 minutes is a HUGE loss of time on such a short race. We were so jammed together that it was absolutely impossible to run past anyone. I felt completely helpless and I knew that my chances at getting a good time were quickly dwindling.
Completely frustrated, when we finally got moving, I tried to move fast enough to make up for lost time but as soon as I got up to a decent pace, I noticed two things:
- One, it was kind of hot out.
- Two, I was completely dehydrated.
I had completely forgotten to drink anything in the two hours prior to the race and my throat was PARCHED. And it was hotter than anything I had run in throughout the current season.
Just great. This wasn’t going to end well.
Just to give you an idea as to how horrible I was feeling; I almost stopped three times throughout the race. My throat was dry to the point where I couldn’t even spit any of the gunk that was forming itself in my Sahara-like throat. And I really and truly… I just wanted to keel over. There was no water station in sight kilometer after kilometer. And there were also no kilometer markers anywhere, which my dad also complained about at the end. Thankfully, I had my Garmin so I had an idea of how far I had gone, but he decided not to wear any kind of tracker and had to guess as to how far along he was.
The shots above were taken in the last kilometer of the race, before reaching any kind of water station. You can’t really tell, but my eyes were closed. I was actually try to stave off the nausea by closing my eyes while running. In a race. /cringe
Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t a single water stand until 800 meters before the finish line. Why this was set up this way, I’ll never know. I’ve never been one to grab for water on a 5K since it’s a pretty short distance, but since I had set myself up so poorly for this race, I really would’ve appreciated one much, much earlier in the race.
By the time I got to the last 500 meters, I honestly thought I was going to throw up. 200 meters before the finish line I was holding up my hand to my mouth because I really thought I was going to retch at the finish line. I was feeling woozy and completely out of my head. I don’t know if it was lack of water, heat exhaustion (it was hot, but not THAT hot out there!) or what the heck it was, but I knew I didn’t feel good and I was terrified I was going to throw up in front of the throngs of people at the finish line. (My aunt and uncle apparently saw me cross the finish line and said I looked just fine to them, so hell if I know what was going on!)
As I crossed the finish line, I came to a dead stop. I was convinced I was going to pass out, but I knew that if I sat down, I’d just make it worse. So I kept moving along, knowing that after the Gatorade stands, there would finally be some water. As soon as I got some proper water in my system, I started to feel better.
After it was all said and done, I didn’t have one of those moments where I was angry at myself for not doing better. I mean, fundamentally I was pissed off with my finish time (which was somewhere around the 28 minute mark) but I knew how awful I had felt throughout the entire run and I realized there was zero chance I could’ve pushed myself harder throughout the run without either throwing up, or passing out.
When I look back on my Garmin’s information regarding the race, I can see that my average heart rate was 189 beats per minute, which, for my age (31), is 100% of max. I even peaked around 196 beats per minute, which is practically through the roof. (Most races I’m in the high 170s.) I have no idea what caused me to feel this horrible throughout my run, but it happened and I guess I just have to move on from it.
I finished in the top 10% out of all the women and out of my age group, and top 20% overall. So it’s not like I totally bombed out of the race, but I’m really displeased with just how crappy I felt. Oh well, I guess you can’t just keep getting personal bests every time you run!
My dad, on the other hand, completed his first 5K with a time of 32:36 which he was dead pleased with! He’d like to run the 10K next year during Ottawa Race Weekend. And while I’m definitely amped about racing, I have to say I am not impressed with the organization of the start zone of Ottawa’s Race Weekend. I had two friends who ran in the half-marathon the following day and they said that the first four kilometers were so jammed with people that they were essentially walking it. There really needs to be much larger time gaps between corrals. For example, the Sporting Life 10K that I did two weekends prior to this race had more than double the number of people running (twenty-two thousand in that race versus the ten thousand in this one) and yet there was zero clusterfucks at the start zone.
As a side note, I saw both my friend and his girlfriend around the 10K marker during their half-marathon the day after my race (I had planted myself on a street corner and warned them well in advance as to where I would be) and I was soooo happy to have seen them out there racing! Since I’m eventually working my way up to a half-marathon, I find them both very inspirational!
5K Race Summary
- Finish Time: 28:07 (personal worst!)
- Pace: 5:37 per kilometer
- Overall placement: 1829/9995
- Age group placement (Female, 30-34): 52/582
- Gender placement (F): 589/5931
