This morning, I started the last week of the 100 push-up challenge workouts, did some ab exercises and invisible chair-sitting, lifted weights and then went for three easy miles. I would have taken Pepper with me, but it was raining pretty steadily, and he hates rain. So I left him in the utility room while I did the miles on my own.
It was a very pleasant run. We’ve actually been getting some rain lately, but it’s all been in the evenings and overnight, so I haven’t gotten to run in it. I forgot how nice it is to run in summer (almost) rain.
When I got home, Pepper had destroyed the utility room once again, in less than a half hour. He had done all the usual things — dragged the doormat and the towel we keep by the door to dry off his paws halfway across the room, turned the lights on and opened the door to the tiny space holding the air handler — but he had also gotten a hold of my keys and destroyed a couple of things. I forgot to put them out of his reach, so I couldn’t be too upset about it, but I was still pretty annoyed. I don’t know why he has to shit his pants like that every time he has to be alone for a few minutes.
I tried to piece together my keys as much as I could, but the keyring is definitely lighter than it was before my run. I then did some barefoot exercises and stretching.
I had a good running weekend.
Saturday morning, I ran the Ocean City 5-Mile Boardwalk Run for the second year. Last year, I finished this race in 42:17.
They start this race at 7 a.m., partly to avoid the heat of the day and partly to avoid the crowds on the boardwalk, as the race is run entirely on the boardwalk, which is not closed to the public. The public doesn’t just come out on foot; they’re also on regular bicycles, recumbent bikes and those four-wheeled bicycle carts.
Due to the early start time, I had to get up at 4:45 a.m., as TK was going to meet me at my house at 5:15 a.m.for the drive to the Ocean City inlet. When my phone alarm started going off, my first thought was, “I appreciate what they’re trying to do here, but damn this is early.”
As usual, I felt more alert as soon as I put on my running clothes. I fed Pepper and let him out, ate my own breakfast, let Pepper back in, hoped he had pooped as he was going to be home by himself for a while, did some ab exercises and brushed my teeth. TK was at the house by that time.
The drive to Ocean City was easy enough and we were in the inlet parking lot by 6:20 a.m. We got our race bibs, timing chips and T-shirts, which were actually very nice-looking multi-colored technical shirts this year. Unfortunately, they were out of the size I had ordered on my registration form, but the next size up wasn’t too terribly big.
Our friend Robyn got there just as we were leaving the registration table. TK and I went back to my car, pinned on our bibs, attached our timing chips to our shoes and put away our race T-shirts. By that time, it was about quarter of 7, so I took off for an easy warm up mile.
I felt really relaxed and loose just during the warm up. The weather was a little warm and humid, but it was overcast and there was even a little tiny sprinkle coming down. I felt like I had a shot at beating my time from the Masser 5-Miler three weeks ago, which had been run on a sunny, hot and humid morning.
I got back to the start area just in time for the national anthem, then squeezed myself in not too far from the front. I figured it wouldn’t matter much where I started since the race was chip timed. The gun went off, and it took me a couple of seconds to get over the start line, which I then realized was not a timing mat, but just a stripe on the boardwalk. That meant my official time would be a couple of seconds slower than my watch time. Not a big deal, but if they’re going to chip time the race, the race directors should put a timing mat at the start and the finish.
Anyway, as usual, a lot of runners had not lined up properly in the starting crowd based on their pace, and there was a lot of weaving going on as everyone struggled to get settled in.
The race followed the same course as last year — we started running south toward the inlet, turned by the boardwalk tram station, ran north toward the pier, ran around the pier, came down onto the boardwalk, ran all the way to the northern end of the boardwalk and then made a U-turn and ran all the way back to the inlet.
By the time I had made it to the tram station, I was passing the second woman in front of me. I slowly drew up on the first woman as we made our way around the pier and back on the boardwalk. Somewhere after that, I passed the first woman and settled into a comfortable pace.
My No. 1 complaint about this race is the lack of mile markers. There are none, zilch. Since I don’t wear a GPS watch that beeps off miles for me, I had no idea where the miles were, and thus had no idea how fast I was running them. I didn’t know if I was running faster than in Lewes three weeks ago, or if I was pitifully slower, which was annoying.
There weren’t many guys running in front of me. I slowly picked off a couple of them before we got to the U-turn. I skipped the water being offered there.
The pedestrians and cyclists hadn’t been too bad on the way out, as they mostly respected the one half of the boardwalk we were running on. However, on the way back, it got more crowded, because now the runners in the race were taking up both sides of the boardwalk. More than once I ran past people moseying along on their bikes or in their cart to hear someone say, “Hey look, we’re in the race! Haha!”
I ran around the bend in the boardwalk and set my sights on the Ferris wheel, which was on the pier and thus close to the finish line. I tried to distract myself from how tired I was getting by reading all the signs on the businesses along the boardwalk, but the bars advertising frozen drinks were starting to get to me, so I had to stop that. Plus, I had to keep my eye out for people not in the race but very much in the way.
I’m pretty sure I was past where the fourth mile marker would have been when it happened– for the first time in three miles, I got passed. By a woman. D’oh!
I tried to keep up. I almost thought I was going to be able to take another run at her. But as we approached the Ferris wheel, she slowly pulled out of my grasp.
I could see the inflatable red arch that was the finish line up ahead. I tried to make out the numbers on the race clock, but I’m half blind at long distances. I couldn’t see a thing on the clock.
I was hoping it was still under 37:39, my time from Lewes three weeks ago, so I could PR. I got closer, and finally, the first two numbers came into focus:
36.
I was almost there, I could do this!
I charged up the ramp that leads to the finish and crossed the line in, officially, 36:40, a minute faster than three weeks ago. That’s an average pace of 7:20/mile, which I was really proud of. I was the second overall female finisher (first place got me by 11 seconds) and the ninth finisher overall. I knew there weren’t a lot of guys in front of me, but I didn’t know I was in the top 10.
I let a race volunteer undo the twist ties holding my timing chip to my shoe (we had to return them), then grabbed a bottle of water and walked to my car to get my flip flops and my camera. Just as I was approaching the finish area, I saw Robyn coming down the boardwalk. I took a picture of her and she finished in 46 minutes and some change, beating her goal of 50 minutes by a long shot.

Robyn approaching the finish line.
I then stood and watched for TK, who finished in 57 minutes and some odd seconds, also besting her time from Lewes, by a couple of minutes.

TK approaching the finish line.
At the awards ceremony, they gave out trophies to the top three male and female overall winners, and I got the biggest trophy I’ve gotten to date. I stood on the steps to the Tilt-a-Whirl, one of my favorite rides as a kid, with my new hardware.

Showing off my largest trophy to date.
The clouds had broken up and TK and I changed into our swimsuits and headed to the beach for a few hours. The sun was hot, the water was cold and it felt great to hang out on the beach for the first time this year. We only stayed until about 1 p.m., so neither of us got burnt, which is new.
At home, I took a shower and lazed about the rest of the day. Clark got home late from Pittsburgh, where he had gone the night before with his brother to help get his brother’s condo ready for a renter. I was asleep on the couch when he got home.
Sunday morning, I woke up around 7 a.m. and ran this week’s marathon training long run, an 11-miler. I knew when I put together this training schedule it was going to be tough to do a long run the morning after a race, which is going to happen every single weekend between now and August, but I didn’t know it was going to be that tough. I managed an easy 9:00/mile pace overall, but my legs were toast at the end of that run. I did some yoga after the run and felt better.
The rest of Sunday was spent cleaning the house, watching the NASCAR race and then going to see my dad, since it was Father’s Day.