Hot in the city

I've raced in all kinds of weather conditions. The Frozen Shamrock 3 miler in Haverhill on February 27th lived up to its name. Fast-forward to April 23rd at the Stonyfield Earth Day 5k in Londonderry, where it was sleeting and raining and I couldn't see three feet in front of my face. Then there was the monsoon rain that began as soon as the gun went off in this year's Spring Fever 5k in Newburyport on May 15th (this race was an anomaly in that I was 3 seconds off my 5k PR- set the day before at Evelyn's Run for the Roses). During the summer season, hot weather is to be expected. But the hottest run of my life thus far was actually a race- the 25th (and final) Sapienza Memorial 4 miler. (I think I'm trying to set a record for most links in one post.)

Anyway, the heat index for that Thursday the 21st was over 100 degrees. I hid in my room all day drinking large quantities of water and Gatorade, praying the temperature would drop by 6:45 when the race started. Well, it did, but it was still sweltering hot. Walking from the car to the school for number pick-up, I was already sweating through my brand new Sisu Project singlet. My dad and I had already discussed that I had to throw time goals out the window because of the heat, but I was still hoping I'd do well.

Andrew and I went through the first mile in around 7:30ish, and things went downhill from there...and uphill, literally. "There's a reason they call it 'HaverHILL'" joked one runner after the finish. But anyway, I could feel myself overheating early on. Having read Runner's World article about running in hot weather from the most recent issue, I was paranoid about what might happen if my temperature got too high. I always tend to sweat a lot and turn reddish during hard runs, but this was a totally different animal. If there was an indicator light on my forehead, it would've been flashing red. Danger danger danger!

At any rate, I had to slow waaaay down, not by choice. Andrew's original plan was to leave me around 2 miles, but seeing how awful I looked, he decided to stay with me. It was a good thing, too, because he probably would've hurt himself if he'd tried to go too fast. At one point, I almost dropped out of the race because I was seeing pictures in my head of me collapsing at the finish line and being attended to by EMTs. Not exactly motivational stuff. I've only dropped out of one race in my entire running career: my last high school track race, a 2 mile of which I ran the first 1200. But that was when I had an undiagnosed stress fracture and I was in agony. Instead of dropping out this time, I just told myself I had to get to the finish line. That would be enough of a victory for me.

The finish itself was downhill, but what goes down must first go up, in this case. I shuffled to the top of the hill and then focused on staying ahead of a lady who had been talking and walking earlier in the race. I managed something that resembled a finishing kick down the last straightaway. As I was finishing, a lady yelled out "What's your name? Are you from Haverhill?" Of course, she was probably a newspaper reporter, but I was in a mental state where at first I couldn't even remember what town I was from.

After I crossed the line, I made a beeline for (aka staggered in the general direction of) the Gatorade and pressed the cold bottle against the back of my neck in a feeble attempt to cool down. Once I was done running, my temperature gradually went back to normal (the ice cream afterwards really did the trick) but I was exhausted for the remainder of the evening. The hot temperature affected everyone, even the elites: Nate Jenkins, the race winner, ran at 5:19 pace. Obviously that's blisteringly fast but for comparison, he ran 4:59 pace last year.

My finishing time was 33:29. I won't lie- I'm disappointed by it, especially since this was my first race representing Sisu. But I guess for that same reason, I should be happy because I persevered through it, something my teammates would be proud of. I definitely think I could've done better on a cooler night. This race was the first during which I took water at a water stop. I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. I've been practicing with water during some of my training runs in preparation for Rock n Roll Providence in a couple of weeks. (Oh yeah, did I mention I'm doing another half? I'm even less prepared for this one but oh well). So I guess I won't beat myself up over Sapienza because conditions were pretty tough. Plus, I'm happy to have participated in the grand finale race.


Here are links to a couple of stories about the race, along with one that talks about the ridiculous number of races in the Haverhill area:

Memories of Sapienza continue to fuel Strout
Future Grandson wins Sapienza finale
Too many road races?