Trotting for Spot

I have participated in some small races over the years, but today’s Trot for Spot 5-K was a new record.  Martha had signed up two weeks ago, but I was unsure whether I was ready for another race – this would be the third in less than a month.  The race benefited Evelyn's Place Rescue, a no-kill shelter for canines.  “I’ll bet there’s a dog on the shirt,” I told Martha, and there was indeed (although, surprisingly, there were no dogs in the race).  

It was a beautiful, warm day, temperatures in the mid-50s only six days before Christmas.  We arrived at Pitts Park in Clarkesville, where a dozen or so people were gathered near a FINISH banner.  I do enjoy these small races, perhaps even more than large crowded events, but as we warmed up and the time approached for the race to start, there still were not many runners at the park at all.  We lined up on a sidewalk and I counted heads; there were twenty-one of us trotting for Spot today.  These small races are informal affairs; the race director walked over and described the course to us, and then just like that we were off, crossing a bridge over the Soquee River, and then out Beaver Dam Road into some pretty countryside with rolling fields and cows.  The road climbed higher and higher up a long hill, then after an intersection down another hill to a traffic-cone turn-around. 

The Race Director was at that intersection and I called out, “I’ll bet that turn-around is at the bottom of the hill, isn’t it?”  And it was.  I had noticed that he seemed to be picking up rocks from the side of the road; Martha told me after the race that she guessed he was counting out rocks into a pile to be sure all twenty-one runners passed him.  The long hill that we had climbed was an advantage now as we headed back to the finish.  I heard footsteps behind me and a man passed on my right.  “Oh good, I’ll follow you to the finish!” I said.  “Those directions seemed a little sketchy at the end.”  He laughed and said, “I don’t know the way either!”  The blind leading the blind.  He stopped to walk and I passed him, and he did not pass me again, and in no time we had turned, crossed the bridge, and then down a short and very steep hill to the finish line, so steep that I walked for the first time in the race.

Martha had done well, taking First Place Master’s Woman and receiving a very nice trophy, the old-fashioned kind we used to always get in races, a shiny gold woman on a little pedestal.  I took first place in (I think) the 70-74 age group and was happy with my time of 36:53, almost as fast as my time in the Reindeer Run two weeks ago. 

It was another good day, as it always is when we compete in a race, no matter the size.  The largest race I have ever completed was the Boston Marathon ten years ago, where I was lost in an ocean of 50,000 runners, and today's was the smallest race.  Size really doesn’t matter.

 

 

P. S. - The day after I posted this - Monday, December 20 - Martha found our official times for the race on the internet and printed them out.  "Thirty-five: fifty-three!  That can't  be right. It was thirty-six: fifty-three!  They have these times all wrong," I insisted.  I checked the history on my GPS watch for Sunday and confirmed that it was . . . 35:53, one minute faster than I had thought - not "almost as fast as my time in the Reindeer Run two weeks ago," but nearly a minute faster.  I realized that I had not had my reading glasses on when I looked at my watch.  "Thank you!" I told Martha  "You just made my day!"  35:53 made this my fastest 5-K time since we resumed running in September after not having run races for 18 months.  To a runner, gaining an entire minute in a 5-K is significant progress.  So I must conclude that running a race every two weeks or so, as we have been doing at Martha's urging, has had a positive effect on my running, which is especially empowering for an aging runner who is accustomed to saying, "The older I get, the faster I was." 

When's the next race?