Burn Off the Turkey 5k – Race Recap

I missed my Thanksgiving day 5k with the mother’s forum running club because I was too sick to run.

However, by Saturday I was feeling delusional enough about my health to run the Burn Off the Turkey 5k up in Maine where we were visiting family.  The race starts right next to my old high school, and it’s a fun local event that a lot of my family runs.

Last year this race was my sister’s first 5k  after doing Couch to 5k, and this year my sister-in-law completed Couch to 5k and ran also!  That meant there were six of us running, me, my sister, my brother, my sister-in-law, my husband (who came in second in his age category, despite also being sick), and my husband’s brother (who won).  It’s a pretty big, fun, family affair.  My grandparents come down and cheer us on, my in-laws help the kids watch, their cousins were all there, it was hard to let a cold get in the way of running!

I hadn’t run a 5k since before both of my half marathons this fall, so I wanted to see how well I could do.  I forgot my Garmin, so I just ran at the most difficult pace I felt I could maintain, and hoped for the best!

I came in with a PR of 29:13, despite the cold weather (10 degrees at the start!) and having been sick.  I feel great about that, it’s nice to see that all the running leads to improvements in my pace even when I haven’t been specifically training for short distances with speed workouts.  Perhaps with a little more focus and some work, I could drop that 5k time to under 29 minutes for the New Year’s Day race I hope to run!

That’s the positive side.  The down side is I’m no longer feeling better, and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment I have to drag both kids to in order to make sure I don’t have a sinus or ear infection as the end result of this lingering virus.  Maybe I would have gone anyway, but maybe if I hadn’t raced on Saturday my body would have been able to recover faster.

Half my brain is saying “Go you! You’re so awesome! Nothing slows you down! Woohoo, PR despite 10 degree weather, exhaustion, and a possible sinus infection, WHAT’S UP NOW?!?!”  The other half, the logical, sensible half, is saying “Really?  You shaved like 20 seconds off your 5k time at the possible cost of several more days of low energy, extended sickness, and a trip to the doctor’s office?  You’re a moron, and what’s more, you’re selfish, because you have two kids to take care of and a household to unpack after traveling and a family that deserves healthy, home-cooked meals after a weekend of pie.”

I don’t know which little voice I agree with.  They’re both a little right.  Without that stubborn perseverance of spirit that led me to run despite being a little under the weather, I wouldn’t have had the grit and the strength to have parented as well as I did this past week when both the kids and I were sick.  I need that little bit of crazy in me in order to make it through life as well as I do, and I like to indulge that spirit of invincibility sometimes to keep it alive.

On the other hand, it’s smart to rest up when you’re sick, especially if you’re a stay-at-home Mom.  No sick days for us.

At the end of the day, I think I’m happy with the decision I made.  I dropped out of one race, but not both.  I was well enough to run it in just over 29 minutes, so I couldn’t have been TOO sick.  Extending a cold is not the end of the world.  Sacrificing too much of yourself and risking a loss of spirit might actually be a bigger deal if you do it too often.

Obviously a cold is one thing – running when you’re really not well is not a smart move, you won’t enjoy the race or have good results.  But in this borderline situation, I think I made the right choice.

There’s a hill on the course during mile 2 that almost broke me when I ran it for the first time last year.  I was trying to break 30 minutes for a 5k for the first time, and halfway up the hill, I gave up and started walking.  Just over the crest of the hill, I looked at my watch and realized I still had a chance at breaking 30, so I started running again, coming in at 29:58.

This year, I saw that hill and was so excited for a chance to do it over again.  I thought of all those hills from my first half marathon, and my second half marathon, and even though my sinuses were killing me, and my teeth hurt from the cold, I buckled in, picked up the pace, and probably passed 15 people going up that hill, mouth hanging open, breathing like Darth Vader with a chest cold.  I can only imagine what I must have looked like.

Nothing felt better than getting halfway up that hill and having no desire to stop.  In my head, I kept telling myself “You are a Caiazzo, you do not stop, you are a runner, you are running this, a cold cannot stop you, being tired cannot stop you, hills cannot stop you, you are UNSTOPPABLE.”

Over-dramatic.

Ridiculous.

Awesome.

There’s just something amazing about doing something you couldn’t do before, and how good that feels.  It’s why I loved running so much in the beginning, and why I love it so much over a year later.  I wanted to stop, and I didn’t.  I wanted to slow down, and I didn’t.  When runners tell you you need to race yourself, that’s what they’re talking about.  Nothing feels more amazing than triumphing over your own desire to stop.  Nothing feels better than saying no, the part of me that wants to keep going is stronger than the part of me that wants to stop, and being right.  With over a hundred people in front of me, I still felt like I’d finished first.