Pacing with a Friend

This campus has a hold of me. First, it sucked all the money from my parents. Then, it kept me long enough that I probably should be a doctor. Even though I broke free from it on a daily basis, it's pull still kept me in the area. Twenty years later, its gravitation pull still has a hold of me and pulls me back to it by running its campus. It's got me again, now it's forcing me to race on it. Oh, wait that's not force of the campus, but CT making me do this.

Sometimes, I really wonder about the crew I ended up with. We ran this route two times this week preparing for this 5K. The plan is for CT to pace our Superstar friend, Judy, to her PR time of under 23. Not sure there's another group of girls who prepare like this.

The morning of the race, CT and I ran to the start of the race. During this three mile warm up, CT decided she didn't think she could go and now I was volunteered to pace Judy. See how this works? Pain sucker on my forehead.

Trying to PR on this course is kind of silly if you ask me, it's hilly. Personally, I don't like the pressure of pacing. It's nice knowing the person trusts you enough to do it, but I'm too much of a softy because I feel bad if the person doesn't make their goal.  For a 5K, I'm not even sure a pacer matters, so even though I got volunteered into this, I'm treating it as a run with a friend tagging behind.

First mile, pretty good, right on pace and that's with going up the monster hill to start. Mile two, Judy is lagging a little behind, well within her goal, but know the final mile is going to have to be fastest. Which in any race, isn't really the way you want it planned, but in this case Judy really likes the downhill and thought for sure we could make up any time lost in the middle of the course here. I tried, I willed, and even yelled trying my best coaching.

My first attempt at pacing a friend, came up 22 seconds short of her goal. You'd think I'd be disappointed with that, but turns out it was 1 second better than her previous PR (she only wanted under 23) and she got first place in her age group! Now, I can't take all of the credit, but I think it's worth at least 20%.