Purple Stride 5K

On Nov. 11, I took a slight detour from my marathon training to support the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (or more specifically, my friend, Alana, who has a family member that suffered from the illness) at the Purple Stride 5K in my hometown of Parsippany, N.J.

The race was an out-and-back set in a corporate park area (Sylvan Way) on flat roadways with minimal turns. It was refreshing to run a race with no logistical worries.

It was also refreshing to run a 5K for the heck of it, instead of specifically training for it, gunning for a PR and putting pressure on myself to lay it all out there. Instead, I used it as my my speed training for the week - a hard effort, but not one that had any of the stress of hitting a specific goal.

It was a chilly morning in the 30s (F) and most of the guys at the front of the starting line (including me) were in shorts, so we were not too pleased that the race was a half-hour late in commencing. I understand that there are speeches to be made about the cause and all, but if they advertise a start time, they should adhere to it.

When it was finally underway, I quickly passed a bunch of guys whom I had assumed would easily stay ahead of me.  Within the first half-mile, I took my place in third.  The front runner, Andrew Ferretti, was extremely fast and far ahead, but Charles Griffin was close enough that passing him seemed possible.

I hit the first mile at 5:41, though I didn't know it at the time because I refused to look at my splits. I wanted to run as fast as I could without the possible disappointment of being slower than usual or the possible shock of running too fast.

By the time I got to the turnaround point at the halfway mark, I was losing some steam but still pushing hard and getting results, marking my second mile with a 5:51 (again, unbeknownst to me at the time). Now it was just a matter of getting through the last mile and finishing strong.

For a moment, I thought once again that I could close in on Charles, but that moment did not last long because I was fading.  Seeing my friends that were walking the course was a nice boost, but I was ready for this race to end soon.

It turned out that it would end too soon. With the finish line in sight, I finally looked at my GPS watch and saw that I had only gone 2.8 miles. The course was short.

Ah, well. I pushed hard into the finish in with a time on the clock of 16 and change, but more importantly, in this case, in third place.

My final pace was 5:51, which means my third mile would have been 6:01. Good thing this was not a longer race - losing 10 seconds per mile is rough.  Doing some math, I extrapolated that my finish time would have been around 18:11 - not bad for a race for which I did not formally train.