The doubt began to creep in at the starting line, where more than 3,000 runners were packed onto Ridgewood Avenue outside of Glen Ridge High School for this odd-distance race (8 kilometers is 4.97 miles, so why not make it a five-miler?). It boggled my mind that they could somehow pull this off for 16 Thanksgivings, as I stood squeezed in toward the front of the start with slower people and children that, despite the half-hearted warning from a race volunteer, were definitely going to be trampled. This was one thing I did not miss about large races.
The start gun fired with no fanfare and we were off...or rather, standing still, then walking, but as soon as I hit that starting mat, it was time to run regardless of the fact that I had to plow through a tangle of people that should have known better than to be in the front.
Thankfully, after that, everything went about as perfectly (and amazingly!) as I could have imagined. Doubt erased.
Zooming north on the straightaway of gentle inclines and descents on Ridgewood Avenue for the first mile and a half, I settled into what felt like a comfortably hard pace - enough effort to keep the speed up, but conserving enough for the next half hour of work. I figured I was right on my goal track of 6:01, so when I hit the first mile marker at 5:42 I was pleasantly surprised.
Easing back ever so slightly around the right turns onto Sunset Avenue and Forest Avenue (to head south again), I was sure that I evened out my splits to get back on goal pace (the motto is still "Run the Race for Which You Trained"), so it was another shocker that I nailed a 5:50.
Because it is such a huge race, there are other runners around at all times. Maybe it was a desire to keep up with the guys around me or at least to keep anyone from passing, but I managed to maintain that pace and still feel like I was not fully exerting myself. At the three-mile marker on the right turn on Osbourne Street, leading us to a left turn to get back on Ridgewood Avenue southbound, the clock read 17:30 as I posted a 5:48 for that mile. Even without the 10-second lag between the gun start and my chip start, I was in serious PR territory. If it was a 5K race, I would have actually - unbelievably - come in under 18 minutes, a feat beyond my wildest dreams.
However, with two miles to go, I had two options. I could eat my cushion, cruise the last two miles at a more comfortable 6:15 pace and still come in under 30, besting my 30:10 from last year's Sunset Classic (even adjusting for that .03 mile difference). Or, I could throw the motto out the window and embrace this amazing moment and push it to the limit.
Well, of course I chose the latter, even though I started to feel some fatigue by the time I passed up the start/finish before the southern loop for the final mile of the figure-eight course. My legs were getting a little heavy and my stomach was beginning the sickly churn that happens when I push too hard for too long. But I mentally swept it all aside knowing that, with a 5:53 for the fourth mile, this race was mine.
A left turn down the hill of Washington and a quick right onto Hawthorne Avenue led to a right on Maolis Avenue and back uphill to return to Ridgewood Avenue for the northward home stretch. That hill could have sapped everything I had in the tank, but somehow I powered up that thing with all my might and managed to catch my breath enough to shift into that extra gear for a sprint to the finish, passing two guys in the process and watching the clock flip into the 29-minute range.
I finished with a 29:06 on the clock and was handed a Top 100 finisher mug (69th place!). I was hurting, no question, but I felt strong and undeniably proud of my accomplishment. My chip time ended up being 28:56 - I was aiming to break 30 minutes and I managed to break 29. Adding those 10 seconds back to adjust for the extra .03 miles, I absolutely destroyed my five-mile PR by more than a minute. Insane.
More incredibly, that comes out to a 5:49 pace - much, much faster than any 5K I have ever run, yet I did it for two miles more.
When I realized that, my next thought was "If I can recapture this energy in three days, I will be able to PR at my hometown race, the Passaic Valley Rotary Run..."
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