Winter Waddle 5K 2006

With the Winter Waddle 5k 2006 complete I have now spent an entire year training and running in various 5k's, duathlons, and triathlons…

Last year, having recently left college and entering the corporate world, I found myself overwhelmed by my new surroundings and lacking a pastime. I would go to the gym and workout to relieve stress, but I never had a goal I was striving to achieve. It was not until Darian convinced me in late December 2005 to work towards competing in a triathlon come the summer months that I actually started to run.

Up until that point I hated running. It bored me, my knees would hurt, and I never found the motivation to go out and run for the sake of running. In high school and college I played football, soccer, and lacrosse, but running was never something I found interesting. Generally I tended to stay away from the activity.

As Darian and I started to plan out how we would train for a triathlon, we thought it would be beneficial to enter ourselves in local 5k races as a way to train for the impending event. Being that it was the middle of December we started to run and train in freezing cold weather. For two weeks we ran in the dead of winter. It was around this time that we found http://www.raceberryjam.com/ and the Winter Waddle 5k. This would be the first race we would enter.

Now, most of the time as we ran around the lake Darian would end up beating me by several minutes. I used this as motivation. There was no better way I found to motivate myself than the desire to beat Darian, who was far more experienced in running than I. A fortnight prior to the Winter Waddle I decided that despite my knees hurting and the boredom I felt while running I would go out every night and run 5k. I thought that by doing this I would build up my endurance and increase my chance of beating Darian, who was stuck inside a cubicle due to an increase in workload. So I went out each night, sometimes in 10 degree weather, and ran around the lake.

As the Winter Waddle 5k got closer I would taunt Darian about his work ethic and lack of training. Finally the day came, December 30th 2005. My training would pay off as I beat Darian by 8 seconds. I ran the race in 23 minutes and 7 seconds. I finished in 81st place out of 319 people. Not bad for hating running and never having been in a legitimate footrace. Plus my girlfriend told me I would get a nice “fuck” if I beat Darian…added motivation I guess.

Following the Winter Waddle I would go on to compete in the Apple Duathlon, Lifetime Fitness Triathlon, Manitou Days 5k, Taste of Greece 5k, Lifetime Fitness Turkey Day Race 5k, Lifetime Fitness Reindeer Run 5k, and finally the 2006 version of the Winter Waddle.

This race was significantly different than the first time I had run it. For one, the weather was a lot warmer; in fact it was raining the entire race. The race course was different; a new path meant increased hills. And I had the added bonus of a years worth of training.

I finished the race in 20 minutes and 25 seconds and took 40th place out of 521 participants. Though it was not my fastest (Taste of Greece I ran in 20:03 and garnered 3rd place) I was happy with the results. Prior to the race I had been running to prepare and found that my knees were killing me, so I switched to the elliptical machine which I thought would actually hurt my times, but I was wrong. Though I was beat from the hills I finished stronger than I had anticipated.

This race also marks the 7th time in which I have finished better than Darian. I look to competing in further races and most likely will try and vastly improve my time in the Apple Duathlon.

***A further post will cover my experience with the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon.