Well, race day finally came on Saturday. Eight weeks of training culminating in a big, nasty 5k race…

I woke up at 5:15 on Saturday morning, took a shower and hopped in my car to get Kim and her husband Paul (who would be walking the race) and ride over to Race City USA (not the official name).

The morning started out well…I found a parking spot on the street about 100 yards from the start/finish line…and we moseyed over to take a picture with our training class at 7am and then ran about a 5 minute warmup as a prelude to the race. I’ve always seen runners warming up before races and thought they were insane…but now I kind of get the whole “get your body moving” idea…we were getting our bodies moving.

At 7:30, the race started…I made sure to move to the back of the pack. I didn’t want to be in anyone’s way when I started and I definitely didn’t want to come out of the gate too quickly. The first quarter mile or so of the race was uphill…and then it was downhill or flat until the 1 mile marker. I ran the whole way to this point.

We hit a giant hill on Fatherland Street (which I knew about and thought I was prepared for), I slowed down gradually until I realized that I’d have to walk to get everything back under control…so I took 100 running steps and then walked 50. I realized I wasn’t ready yet, so I walked to a stop sign and then ran to the next stop sign, repeating until I was over the hill. I then ran the downhill and flat portion of the hill until we came to another uphill, which I again walked.

I was getting hot, I was feeling a little dehydrated (all of the water at the water station came right back up), but I could feel I was kind of getting it done. The course was hilly the rest of the way, I walked the uphills and ran the downhills with no clue what my time was. The key is that I had been running for the majority of the race.

Finally, as I rounded the corner to approach the finish line…I noticed the clock said 49:01…I didn’t know how long it would take me to get there, but I tucked into an all-out sprint…and made it in an official time of 47:57 (I crossed the start line about a minute and a half after the race started). That’s a 15:28 pace for those keeping track at home. Not awful…although I did finish dead last in my age group.

My next goal is two-fold. First, I don’t want to be last in my age group again. Second, I want to break 45 minutes. The plan begins tonight – I have another race coming on Labor Day…my only problem is that I don’t quite know what my plan consists of yet.

8 weeks ago, I struggled on the first day of my “Potato-to-Tomato” class. We ran eight 60 second jogs with 90 second walks in between. I made it through 7 of them, but could not finish 8. The second day, I held onto get 8 and struggled through 9.

The next week, we did 90 second jogs with 2 minute walks in between. This week wasn’t horrible…we did 6 repeats on Monday and 7 on Wednesday.

The first two weeks I missed the Saturday run – I was out of town for the first and the second…well, I was lazy.

On the week of the 4th of July, the program seriously kicked it up a notch…we ran 90 seconds with a 90 second walk followed by a 3 minute jog with a 3 minute walk. The first day, we had to do the workout on our own (which I did) and do two repeats. I finished…but it wasn’t easy. On that Wednesday, my whole body decided to crap out. We were doing 3 repeats…I got two done and couldn’t do more. On Saturday, we were to do 4 repeats. I actually showed up and got two done again and partially through a third before my body crapped out on me again. This wasn’t looking good for me.

The following week, we kicked the plan up a notch – 3 minute jogs with 90 second walks followed by a 5 minute run with a 2.5 minute walk…and then repeat that once. The first day…I got through the first 3 runs…and made it 3 minutes into the last 5 minute. I felt like I had made huge progress…then on Wednesday, I did the whole thing. I could barely believe it. That Saturday, we took to the greenway, which has poles every quarter mile…ran a quarter mile, walked a quarter mile, ran a half mile, walked a quarter mile and repeated…and…wouldn’t you know? I actually finished that…

A bit of confidence was starting to set in.

The following Monday, I was going to a Britney Spears concert, so I did my run on my lunch break at work. It was three 5 minute runs separated by three 3 minute walks. I finished them all. We were hauling. Then on Wednesday was the big daddy (so far) – two 8 minute runs separated by 5 minute walks…and on “The Hill Route“…and I did it…and I was feeling good. I had had some shin splint issues to this point, but I had managed to keep them mostly at bay. That Saturday was the 2 mile greenway run…and I made it a half mile before my shin felt like it was exploding. Not so good. Not at all. I wanted to quit. 5 weeks and I couldn’t run a half mile.

I still showed up the following Monday. This time it was a 5 minute run/3 minute walk/8 minute run/3 minute walk/5 minute run. I made it through the first two runs…but then we hit the hill…and I could only do half of the last 5 minute run. When we hit the downhill portion of the hill, I did make it up and run an extra 2:30…it wasn’t perfect, but I did get it out. On Wednesday, however, I just couldn’t do it. It was a 10 minute run/3 minute run/10 minute run. I finished the first 10…but only made it about a minute into the second until my shin started hurting so badly that I couldn’t stand it…I was clueless at this point. I had been trying compression sleeves and everything else I could get my hands on. Nothing was working. That Saturday, my friend Kim and I ran a 4K…I did run about the first 6/10ths of a mile before resorting to a walk. Then I ran another little bit that made my total running equivalent to about a mile. It wasn’t fantastic…but it was something.

The week of August 1 was when everything started to shift…Monday’s run was three 8 minute jogs with 1 minute walks in between. I actually finished the first two and got halfway through the last one before I did I quick 2 minute walk and ran the last 2 minutes. Afterwards, I had a free visit with a physical therapist and asked him about my shin splints…he looked at my feet, told me that they were extremely flat and that I needed an insole of some sort. I went to REI, purchased a product called Superfeet and stuck them in my shoe. On that Wednesday, the run was supposed to be two 12 minute runs with a 1 minute walk in between. Unfortunately, there was a 110 degree heat index outside…so I opted instead to run on the treadmill for the first time during my entire journey…with the new Superfeet insoles. Instead of running for 12 minutes…I ran for 2 miles in 40 minutes. It wasn’t fantastic speed and obviously running on a treadmill is easier…but I did something I never thought I could do. Saturday, however, I had a road endurance reality check. Our plan was to run 2.5 miles on the greenway. I got to the half-mile point and decided to take a brief walk and kick my run back up. Shortly before the .75 mile mark I started running again, but it was hurting (mostly in my upper body…I was pushing harder than I had before…probably because the things that had hampered me before weren’t). I was going to switch my plan to run a half mile/walk a quarter mile and then just aim to run a full 5k later in the fall. Then when I hit the halfway point, my coach was waiting on me…and he wouldn’t let me walk on the way back. When I couldn’t run anymore, he made me take 100 more running steps…and then walk 50 steps before kicking back up again. All told, out of the 2.5 mile course on Saturday…I did manage to cover about 2 miles of it.

On Monday, we shifted away from the park and were taken onto the actual course for three 10 minute runs with 1 minute walks in between. The first 10 minutes was fairly easy…the course starts off uphill, but quickly makes a long downhill and doesn’t go back uphill until the 1 mile mark. However, it goes allllllllll the way uphill basically from the 1 mile mark to the 2 mile mark. It’s just one, long continuous awful, hellacious hill…and I ran the whole 10 minutes on it (although I kept telling myself I would quit). Unfortunately, I had burned up so much energy going up the hill that as the second 1 minute walk ended, I wasn’t in any condition to run again…finally, after about 2-3 minutes, I was able to kick in and run a bit. Off and on for the next 8 minutes I did the 100 step/50 step method and managed to (for the most part) finish the run…I feel like if I had known what to expect on the long hill, I could have taken it slower and run longer.

Then Tuesday happened. Tuesday was 30 minutes of straight running. Obviously, this has been a problem on the road. I can do it in an airconditioned room on a treadmill, but not when my entire method of propulsion is my own body. 5 minutes ticked away…I felt okay. 10 minutes ticked away and I knew I was breaking new ground. We hit the halfway point and I started to think about stopping. Then we got closer to 20 minutes…and I realized I had just done something on the road that I hadn’t done before…and again, I thought about stopping. Then at about the 24 minute mark…a hill appeared. There were 6 minutes left in my run. I had already made it further than I had ever gone on the street before. There was no shame in quitting now…or was there? There were only 6 minutes left…it was a nasty hill, but…there were only 6 minutes left. I was so exhausted that it killed me to expel energy to get out of the way of the hedge that was sticking out into my running path…but at the 28 minute mark, I was over the hill. I was in the home stretch. 2 minutes left and it was flat…and I ran…and ran…and ran…and finished back almost exactly where I started. Roughly 2 miles in 30 minutes with no walking. I cannot believe it.

Regardless of what I do in the 5k on Saturday. The fact that I ran 2 miles in 30 minutes on Wednesday…I know it’s the start of something.

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Here’s the full “Potato-to-Tomato” plan:

See you down the trail, Shelby Park...

I’m one week away from the Tomato 5k…and, since we are doing our training on the actual course on Monday and Wednesday, today was the last run in Shelby Park with my running group.

2.5 miles. On the greenway.

This was a test. A major test. I had run 2 miles on the treadmill before but…yeah, running on the road is vastly different.

I made it a half mile and the BACK of my leg started hurting. So I figured there was no shame in walking for a moment…which is what I did.

I kicked back up before the .75 mile pole (no, I’m not a horse…the trail is actually marked with quarter poles) and made it past the “bouncy bridge” – named because despite looking sturdy…it bounces when you run on it…which is why I decided to walk it…something about an entire bridge bounding into your moving knees.

But anywho…I decided I’d continue with my little walk-run method until I came to the 1.25 mile marker/turnaround…where my coach was waiting on me. He decided he’d push me…and boy did he…if I needed to walk, I’d count down my running steps from 100 before I walked…and then took 50 walking steps before starting up again. This was to push me…if I was about to crap out it gave me a little incentive to run a little longer.

I was about to puke…but I made it to the finish, having run a total of about 2 of the 2.5 miles.

Not too shabby, I don’t think.