2013 Ravenswood Run Recap

What, another race recap?  If one race was good this past weekend, two were better.  Sunday was the Ravenswood Run, an awesome local 5k that goes through my neighborhood.  Even as tired as Bob and I both were after the Marathon Relay on Saturday, it's hard to pass up a race that is extremely well-run, is pretty reasonably priced, benefits the local food pantry, and starts about half a mile from our apartment.

With my favorite neighborhood running buddy, Amy

The 2012 Ravenswood Run was a huge race for me, in part because it was the first one I had ever actually trained for, and because at that time, running 3.1 miles was still a lot for me.  It's funny how much has changed in a year.  This year, I was just looking forward to having a fun race.  I knew I'd be coming off of the relay, so I didn't treat this as a goal race, and really didn't pay much attention to my time.  Being tired and still having a sore achilles tendon, I just wanted to take it easy and have fun.  So Amy and I started toward the back, between the 11:00 and 12:00 pace markers.  I told her that I had wanted to negative split the race, starting out at a 12 minute pace, but we ended up doing our first mile in 10:55, which felt pretty good, so we went with that.  Our splits ended up being pretty consistent, staying within about 10 seconds of each other.

I think this was going up Sunnyside

They changed the course route this year so that it went through Lincoln Square, so it was more in line with a lot of runs I take around the neighborhood on my own.  I really liked the new course.  I've heard that the change was just because of construction, but I hope they keep it.  Last year's course had less turns (and running a long stretch gets kind of boring) and ran through slightly less interesting parts of the neighborhood.

Running up Lincoln Avenue, between Wilson and Leland

My time last year was 39:36, so my only real goal was to beat that.  I finished in 37:06 (logging 3.4 miles, thanks again to the tangents), which is, amazingly, only 10 seconds over my current 5k PR of 36:56 at the Hot Chocolate.  I definitely wasn't looking to PR, but I'm amazed that I came so close!  

Amy and I after finishing

As Amy and I were running the last half mile, with plenty of neighborhood spectators cheering us on and telling us to keep on going, I commented on how much better overall I felt at this year's run than last year.  Even being exhausted from running 7 miles the day before, and even with a sore achilles.  Last year, every bit of that 5k was really hard for me, and I felt like I was trying so hard.  At this point, running shorter distances is starting to feel like a muscle memory kind of thing that I don't have to think too hard about, which is pretty cool.

Oh, Bob was there too

Afterward, Bob and I went to the official race pancake breakfast, put on by a neighborhood church that also has a food pantry and kitchen that serves homeless people in our area.  Tickets were just a $10 donation, and that $10 buys 100 pounds of food for our hungry neighbors in Ravenswood and Uptown.  The breakfast included pancakes, sausage and hash browns, and was a perfect way to end the morning.

I'd like to say that I'll try to avoid doing double races on the same weekend again in the future, because I was just completely exhausted by the time we got home after the race on Sunday, and because it obviously took a toll on my leg, but I really like both races that I did this weekend, and it seems like they'll probably continue falling on the same weekend so.... we'll see what next year brings.

Have you ever done back-to-back races?  Does your neighborhood have a race?