The park that sits in the middle of the quaint and pretty downtown Chester served as the starting and ending point for the Heroes Run 5K, a well-organized, small-town race by Re/Max Heritage Properties and a great staff of volunteers.
I entered the race after some research led me to last year's inaugural run which drew only 82 people and a winning time that I knew I could beat.
That is not to say that I went into it expecting to win. After all, I probably was not the only one that noticed the soft field from last year. Plus on the rare occasions that I had been in the lead in previous races, I somehow managed to lose it - the Leonia 10K in which I made a wrong turn came to mind, so I started scribbling the route directions on my hands with a Sharpie marker.
This year's Heroes Run grew a little, but the field was still small. When the race started, Chester's own Stephen Jeffs darted out into the lead, temporarily dashing my hopes of my first win. Still, second place was easily do-able here, so the goal was to simply trail Stephen for as long as possible.
As I came up alongside him on Fairmount Avenue in the second mile, I told him, "Don't worry, I'm not going to beat you," because I figured he probably came here for the same reason I did and, frankly, I did not think I had a kick in me for the end. He responded that he thought I might.
Here were two doubters in the lead, each thinking the other would pull away. Stephen was so nice that when he saw me checking my directions, he spared me the effort of reading the red scribbles on my hands, alerting me to each coming turn as we navigated the roads north of Main Street. We ran side by side on the uphill of Hedges Road and on the turn from Hillside Road onto Ammerman Way (which, by the way, had no street sign - good thing I had Stephen and my hand notes to help!).
Rounding the corner toward Cedar Tree Lane, we came upon a downhill that was about two-tenths of a mile and severe enough to have to make a choice - bound down and let gravity pull me with long strides or hang back and focus more on shorter leg turnover.
I chose the former, stretching my legs as far as they would go (leaving me with some groin ache later on), leaving Stephen behind. Because in the end, with less than a mile to go, it was not about Stephen anymore and it was not about winning either. It always comes down to the same thing - beating the clock. All that time I was jockeying for position, I had no idea how I was doing compared to my own previous races. Maybe I was in PR zone; maybe I was well over 19 minutes.
Pushing as hard as I could on the last stretch of Collins Road, trying to keep the momentum from the downhill and still fully extending my legs, I saw the clock still in the 18s. And they were holding tape at the finish line! I'm going to actually know what it feels like to break the finish tape!
My first win was with an 18:46. I have lost age group awards with better times. But that did not matter. I ran a great race, with a time of which I can be proud and, darn it, I won!
Talk about a confidence booster.
Oh, for the record, after the race I apologized to Stephen for telling him I was not going to beat him and then doing so.
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