Havelock 5-K

As I mentioned in last Wednesday's post, Martha had identified a 5-K race in Havelock, home of the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station and mid-way between here and New Bern.  It was a small race and not very well-advertised, benefitting a Catholic school, but it was a good tune-up for some more ambitious races on the horizon, in particular the Crystal Coast Half Marathon and 10-K on March 2.

When I awoke on Saturday morning it was still dark in Atlantic Beach, but by the time I had done my Tai Chi and had breakfast, the sky was growing lighter and lighter, and I went outside to watch the sunrise.  What a gorgeous sky!  The sun had not yet appeared over the ocean, but already the sky overhead was mottled with lovely, glowing colors, and the horizon all around, to the south over the ocean, the north over Bogue Sound, and even to the west, glowed pink and purple, like sound that reverberates around an auditorium.

Some other folks were down on the beach taking photos, too.  It somehow renews my faith in mankind to know that there are still people in this world who have eyes and hearts and spirits open enough to be able to appreciate such a simple event as the daily appearance of the sun.  The waves were quietly washing onto the beach, and the only other life was a seagull or two soaring above the waves.

We left in plenty of time and arrived at the big gymnasium of the Annunciation Catholic School in Havelock - the logo of "The Saints" was painted in the middle of the floor - where registration was taking place.  I do enjoy these small, low-key, laid-back races!  The Race Director was thrilled that participation had increased from 50 to 60 to this year's Fourth Annual record of 92 runners.  We signed up quickly, crossed the busy US-70 at a cross-walk, and began warming up.

The course was flat and fast, and Martha took off immediately.  She told me later her plan had been to run 9-minute miles, and after the race her watch recorded 9:01, 9:01, and 9:05 for the first three miles.  We both realized that the course was longer than 5 kilometers - unusual in a small race (they are usually short) - so we adjusted our times accordingly (I took a split at the 3.1-mile mark of what turned out to be a 3.22-mile "5-K."  But we did not complain - there was chip timing and the results were posted promptly by a timing company the organizers had contracted for the event.  And there were bananas, water, even a pancake breakfast back across the street for those who wanted it.

Martha's time, adjusted for the correct distance, was 28:02, and she realized when we returned to the condo and she checked her race book that this was her fastest 5-K since 2012.  For my part, I was happy that I only felt a slight twinge in that injured right knee in the final mile, and I was even able to pass one tall young woman in the final half-mile.  As it happened, I was the only man in my age group, so I received a First Place medal.  Martha battled it out with a woman a year or two younger (who, it turned out, had barely beaten her at last year's Cocoa 5-K), but she was out-kicked at the finish and took Second Place in an age group containing nine woman.  She finished 14 overall out of 92, and I pointed out that that meant she was in the top sixth of all the finishers.  She is running very well these days!

At the finish line, I began talking to a man in his 50s who was, like me, coming back after an injury, and we were both bemoaning the slower times to which we were having to adjust.  After the race, we sat at a table with the woman who had competed so well with Martha and two of her friends, enjoying the relaxed camaraderie of runners.  Martha told me later that one of the women had said when they saw me, not knowing I was her husband, "Now that's a real runner!"

My head is still a little swollen from that report.  But with a finish time as slow as mine, I was happy to accept the compliment.  A real runner!  I told them, as a real runner, that I had been passed early in the race by a woman pushing a double-stroller holding a little girl.  In the final miles, just after I had passed that tall young woman, I noticed the stroller was slowing and I began to gain on it.  Then I realized that it had stopped, and the mother was running back to retrieve a shoe her little girl had kicked out.  "Maybe I can catch her!" I thought.  But then I felt guilty, as if I should have stopped and let her finish ahead of me.  But that did not prove a problem; she quickly put on the shoe, started running again, and mother, stroller, and child finished a long way ahead of this old, slow real runner.