To be honest, I am really struggling with the purpose of my blog these days. I know blogs are dead, but for some reason, I convince myself I still need to be posting here. I don’t make any money off my blog, but this blog has become my diary over the last 16 years.
I used to post a lot more and share more of my personal life, but I just don’t have time for more than one or two posts a month. And during the summer, I have even less time when the boys are home with me full-time, which is why this blog post is coming almost three weeks late. Maybe I just need to give up the blog during the summer months and then just post when I can during the school year.
I hate that this blog post took me three weeks to publish because now it seems like ‘what’s the point.’ But I go back to having this as my diary, and I do often go back to my race recaps if I want to check on what I did, what time I left for an event, or a small detail I forgot. So I do appreciate having these posts.
I don’t know. I ‘m just rambling at this point and sharing my honest thoughts. I almost feel like I need a closing post if I do decide to hang up my writing hat, which writing is not my strongest suit anyway. I can do it, but it isn’t necessarily something I love or excel at.
But for the time being, I’ll keep writing. Who knows what will happen. Everyone is going to Substack now, so I think about that, but I also don’t need any more platforms to manage.
Anyway, back to the Nightmoves 5000 race recap. This was an event that was previously put on by Tracksmith for the past few summers. For whatever reason, Tracksmith/Trials of Miles is no longer traveling across the country and putting on the event in various cities, so Mill City Running decided to create their own event. I love that they did this because it is such a fun, unique event. At first I was kind of intimidated about a track meet but the event is really just a bunch of road runners taking turns running on the track. The evening was split into nine heats with the slowest heat going first and the last heat being the fastest runners.
I was in the seventh heat of the night and slated to run at 9:18 p.m. The time I am usually in bed! I knew adrenaline would keep me energized and the excitement of the atmosphere would be fun, so I wasn’t too worried about being tired. But it is always strange to run hard so late at night.
I spent the day keeping things low-key. I had a nail appointment, attempted to take a nap, used my compression boots, and headed up to the Cities around 5 p.m. I kept my meals pretty simple with lots of carbs, some protein, and then less fiber as the day went on. Luckily I didn’t have any stomach issues, so I must have done okay.
Once I got the Hamline University where the meet was hosted, I picked up my bib, and then started to warm-up. I found some friends to chat with and calm my nerves as well.
After about an hour warm-up with some easy jogging, stretching, and putting my legs up on a wall for about 5 minutes, it was time to head to the track for my heat. My heat took off a few minutes late at 9:23 p.m. The sun was down, the stadium lights were on, and the people cheering were starting to make a tunnel on the homestretch.
This was my third time running this race, so I knew that the 12.5 laps does go back faster than you think it will. (At least it did for me.) I started in the back of the 18:30 pacer, which was so nice to have a person-pacer and pace lights around the track. This was the first time I ran with pace lights, which was a cool experience.
I felt pretty good through the first mile (although not as good as I did two years ago when the pace felt easy to start), but the 5:58 min/mi pace felt doable. While my watch did beep at 5:58 for the first mile, I don’t trust my GPS watch on the track, so I didn’t really pay attention to it too much. I mostly just focused on the pacer and the pace lights and tried not to let them slip away from me.
There was a lap counter (flip chart) at the finish line, so I would take a peek at that each lap as the number of laps decreased. After the second mile (which was also a 5:58 on my watch), I started to lose contact with the pacer and pace lights more. I was really feeling the lack of fitness, the heat, and I was starting to struggle.
Going into the race, I was thinking I could realistically run between 18:30 – 18:45. I thought on a good day I could run closer to 18:30, which is why I tried to stick with the 18:30 pacer. But that last mile got me. My watch beeped 6:05 for the third mile.
I covered those 12.5 laps in 18:51, which is an average pace of 6:04 min/mi. This really wasn’t far off my original prediction of what I could run, but it still feels much slower than I did last year. My recovery post Boston has been really long and my fitness has taken a hit this year. I also can’t deny the temps in the upper 70s also affected my performance.
I am really trying not to let a sub-par (in my mind) performance damper my mood and just see it as a fitness check-in and motivation to keep working hard. But I do feel like I have a long ways to go to get back to where I was, which is frustrating. I will say I still love this event and would highly recommend it to others.
