July 28th 2007 was the date of my second “official” race. It was a beautiful summer morning in southern California and I had pre-race jitters as I stood at the starting line of the Iron Girl Solana Beach 5k road race. I don’t know why I felt nervous that morning as I had told myself over and over that I was just there to have fun and run at a comfortable and enjoyable pace. Maybe it was the air of excitement as 400 or so women stood around me waiting in anticipation for the starter gun to sound. Or maybe it was because Erik was standing among the spectators cheering me on before I had even started running. Whatever it was, I have since learned that a little nervousness is harmless and perhaps even helpful in the sense that it gets the adrenaline flowing and helps the legs move a little faster when all they want to do is slow down and stop.

The beginning of the run was horrible; the “fast” runners took off at a startling pace, each one wanting to beat either everyone else or their own personal record. Since this was only my second race I wasn’t really sure what my goal was. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be one of the last runners home and so very foolishly, I took off like a bat out of hell to make sure I kept up with the lead runners (well ok, the group of runners right BEHIND the lead runners). This was a huge mistake as I used up most of my readily-available energy before I had even reached the halfway mark. So as I made the turn to head back to the start, my lungs felt as if they were on fire, my legs felt like rods of steel, and it took everything in me to keep going. By the time the finish line was in sight I thought my legs were going to give way on me, and my insides were starting to feel as if they were about to yield to some kind of spastic attack. I saw Erik however, standing near the finish line and coaxing me to push through the pain, and I somehow managed to get my body through the finishing tape. I didn’t even throw up surprisingly, but I did learn a valuable lesson that day - NEVER try to keep up with the front-runners, a lot of them will fall back anyway once they realize the pace is too fast.

Even though I suffered miserably after that race, and I was admittedly over-zealous, I did end up taking 4th place in my division (35 to 39 year olds), and I placed 26th overall out of 460 women. Not bad for my second race but still, my race strategy wasn’t very smart and resulted in some very inconvenient intestinal distress, a condition which continues to plague me whenever I over-exert myself.  You’d think I would have learned by now…….

My next race was the San Diego Bay Bridge 4 mile run but I ran that with friends and this time I  took turns with one of my friends pushing her baby in the stroller. At the completion of that race I felt like I wanted an even bigger challenge, and that’s when I came across a flyer advertising the West Coast Road Runners Club. More about that in my next blog….