Duck Trot 8k

As Woody Harrelson says to Jesse Eisenberg in Zombieland, “Enjoy the Little Things,” (Rule #32) and even though my city is not overrun with a plague of Zombie Virus, I am still going to enjoy this little thing. This little thing being: I won the Duck Trot* today! (And I set a PR.)

Many caveats:

1. I was the first female finisher.
2. I was the 15th finisher overall. (The guy who finished 14th? Yeah he was 65 years old.)
3. There were 48 total competitors, and only 15 other females.
4. This is the first time I’ve ever run an 8k so no matter what it was gonna be a PR.
5. 8 kilometers equals 4.97096954 miles

But who cares! I still won! Whoo hoo! How did I do it? I ran as fast as I effing could. Which turned out to be 39:55, an average 8:02 pace. (That’s the official score. Little G gave me 39:54 over 4.94 miles for an 8:05 average pace. I did run the tangents well.)

These Long Island Road Runners Club races are a super casual thing. There are some middle-aged guys who organize the events, and a couple of nice ladies who collect the money (registration is on-site right before the race–$7 for non-members! What a bargain!), bunched around. Then they don orange “Race Official” vests a few minutes before the start, and make announcements. My favorite: “We just bought a chip timing system!”

And we were off. The pack was small and I could start right up very close to the line, I had to remind myself to take it easy, not to dart out with all the fast guys right away. This resulted in the first mile being my slowest (8:20). From the start I was one of the leading women in the race, but I thought for sure there were others behind me just picking up steam; I tried to conserve some energy so as not to be the dumb outsider who burns up in the first few miles. Somewhere in Mile 2 (8:04) I passed the only other woman I thought was ahead of me, and focused on holding form and maintaining pace in the event that I needed to kick at the end. In Mile 3 (8:00), I picked off a few guys, and decided I llloved the pancake-flat course. Zippityzip, no hills to slow me down. By Mile 4 (8:06), it was just me, my panting, and the back of the older gentleman ahead of me. I kept my eyes pinned on him (he had a good lead on me) and even though I knew I wasn’t going to catch him, I didn’t want him to get any further ahead. My legs were getting heavy, but I knew it was nearly over. I liked the set up–two laps of the same crazy eight’s shaped loop; I could see the progress I was making by landmarks as well as by Little G’s calibrations. I decided to rev it up for the last 0.94 miles of the race (7:23), and sped up as much as I could. I felt my heart hammering in my chest (the minute the race started my heart rate monitor strap promptly slipped off from my ribcage so I ran with it around my waist the entire way). I crossed the finish line alone, with one of the race officials saying softly, “Huh. The first female finisher.” Talk about low-key!

I had no idea what the proper etiquette was as winner and didn’t know what to do next. So I just kind of got some water, walked in circles to catch my breath, and then begun stretching. One of the race officials posted the first batch of results–there was my name, #15 overall and #1 among women. Small smile to myself. I chatted with a few of the other racers, and then headed to my car. Called my dad and woke him up, told him about my win (paternal pride). Drove to my Nana’s house, told her about the win (she thought I was joking). Went to my friend DT’s house (we ran the Arizona Marathon together), told her about the win (high five). Tweeted the win, received lots of happy at-replies. Got home, told Husband. Big hug, then he came back from walking the dog and surprised me with a bouquet of flowers and a soy chai latte.

Everything is relative, and I am completely aware that today’s performance in a NYRR race wouldn’t even get me an age group award. I’ll worry about that some other day. Today, I’m savoring this little thing. Who knew victory tastes like a soy chai latte?

*The LIRRC calls this a Duck Trot instead of a Turkey Trot because Long Island’s unofficial mascot is the duck, which goes back to the region’s historical fame for their duck farms.