The Bellmore Striders Independence Day Run was held (of course) on July 4, 2011. It is a 4-mile race which is a bit of an odd distance for a race, but should have suited me perfectly as 4 miles was my daily run at the time.
This one was well-organized and seemed to go off without a hitch, but I really wasn’t happy with anything I did while I was there.
The had lots of porta-potties available, but there was a long line before the race anyway. After picking up my shirt and number, I had about 20 minutes to kill, so decided to wait on the line to be sure the bladder was empty for the run. This worked out really well because, by the time I was finished, they were starting to move the runners to the start line. This was the last thing that went right for me at this race.
I peeked at the results from the previous races and noticed there were lots of very impressive times. I figured this was a runner’s race so I’d try and do the right thing and start a little further back to prevent getting in the way of faster runners. This courtesy is a whole different topic so I’ll rant about it another time, but suffice it to say, this was a mistake.
Several seconds after the buzzer went off (which I only barely heard, so I wasn’t even sure the race started) I was still standing there in a crowd. I started off just trotting, boxed in by lots of other runners and it took me a while to find room and get up to my normal race pace. A little frustrated, I probably pushed the first mile a little too hard trying to make up the time. To make things worse, in my confusion at the start, I forgot to hit start on my watch which was even more mentally disconcerting when I realized it almost a half mile in. As a result, I’ll mention that the start was at the very west-most end of Pettit Ave and takes a turn north on Bedford. That’s where I finally turned on my GPS, so I’ll let Garmin Connect describe the rest of the course.
Despite the rocky start, I hit the first mile marker in a little over 7 minutes, so, at that point, I started feeling better about the race, but that didn’t last long. Toward the end of mile 2, the heat started getting to me. I had been running 4 miles almost every day anyway, but most of my runs are at 6 in the morning. By 9:00, the start time for this race, it was already hotter than I was used to.
In the last mile I was having a hard time just putting one foot in front of the other. If this had been a regular morning run, I might have stopped. In the homestretch down Grand Ave, I was getting passed again and again, the finish line was never so welcome a sight.
Once I finally finished and stopped running, the first thing I noticed was how wet I was. I’d run during many other summers, but I had never been drenched in sweat like that before. Even my shoes and socks were squishy like I had been standing in a deep puddle. They were printing out a results page customized for each runner. I got one, but it just disintegrated because even after I cooled down, I just kept sweating. It got all wet and fell apart.
I sometimes think of a race in terms of whether I won or lost. I don’t mean beating other runners, I mean hitting a certain goal or just feeling good with the effort overall. I consider this race a loss. I should have easily come in under 30 minutes, so my 30:25 (7:37 pace) was pretty disappointing. What really bothered me was how terrible I felt in the second half of the race, but obviously I was having heat and possibly some dehydration issues.
As with any race where I’m unhappy with the result, I want a rematch. This was a great, well-organized race on par any other good racing event I’ve done, so I’ll definitely be back next year.
