She Runs by the Seashore

Follow @VanessaJunkin

I started out the eRace the Stigma 5K this morning right at the starting line, and I was able to maintain my spot as the first female the entire time.

This kept me going throughout the race, which began at Salisbury Bible Fellowship and went through the neighborhood near Salisbury University before coming back to Salisbury Bible Fellowship for the end.

My first mile was the fastest. My watch logged Mile 1 at 8:03. It was finally sunny out — after a couple weeks of dreary, rainy weather — and I felt good. While I was getting tired as the race went on, I didn’t have shin splints and I was able to run pretty much the entire thing.

It was hotter than I thought it would be, so I did end up getting a quick drink of water at both water stops, walking very briefly at the second one, which was after the turnaround spot. At the turnaround spot, I saw I had some distance between myself and the next female runner, and I figured it would be OK to slow down to drink some water.

The end of the race was mostly a long straightaway before turning into the finish line. I ended with a time of 25:16 on my watch, although my watch logged the distance as 2.94 miles. My watch logged my average pace at 8:36/mile.

It was awesome and exciting to come in as the first female, and when my name was called to accept my medal, I felt like I had a pretty big fan club, which was fun. I even got a blog shout-out from one of the race directors as I received my medal.

In addition to the overall and age group awards, there were also medals for each of the Athletes Serving Athletes participants and lots of door prizes. I didn’t win a door prize, but several of my friends did.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, one main reason I wanted to run this race that my friends organized is because I really support the cause and I am happy to help a family with a member who is suffering from mental illness. I think there are many people who probably don’t fully understand mental illnesses or realize how common they are.

It was fun to be in the front of the pack (behind several male runners, of course). It’s the second time I’ve ended up as the first overall female runner in a race. I also came in first in the Mike Sterling 10K in Crisfield back in 2013.

I wore my new Eastern Shore Running Club shirt and thought it was cool that I had a single-digit race number, too.

I plan to be back next year to try to defend my title!

Splits (according to my watch):

Mile 1: 8:03

Mile 2: 8:45

Mile 3 (logged as .94): 8:29

Like She Runs by the Seashore on Facebook here.