2009 NCAA Final Four 5K

A championship run by Villanova had us all headed to Detroit for the Final Four. Ironically enough, the NCAA had its own championship 5k run for all of the fans who made the trek to Motown. I didn't expect a huge turnout...turns out, I was wrong. 8:00 a.m. saw 1,500 fans (1496 from MSU, 4 from Nova) at the event!

After a quick warm-up in the streets of Detroit and the unfortunate news that race day registration wouldn't come with an event shirt (our sole reason for waking up so early!), Meggo (Lauren's roommate) and I headed for a spot near the front of the pack. Determined not to get caught in the masses, we found ourselves amongst the high school racers and hard core runners...oh well.

After the national anthem and some uninspiring words from a local TV personality, the gun went off and we charged down a ramp and into a tunnel that spit us onto the Detroit waterfront. I was happy to still be able to hear the music blaring from the pace car for most of the first mile as the field quickly thinned out. I ended up in an odd no-man's-land about 50 feet behind the closest runner and 50-75 feet ahead of the next closest runner.

I pushed hard through the first mile (6:13 ish) and tried to settle into some sort of pace. Having been sick and missed all my workouts for a week plus, I didn't have too many visions of greatness. I did manage to nearly make two wrong turns on the course, one of which put me amidst the tables and chairs of a cafe along the water. Brilliant. At that point, the second place girl (which I discerned from the volunteer loudly cheering her on to pass me) passed me.

Much to my dismay, I then realized I'd missed the second mile marker along the way and had no idea what kind of pace I was at. This was clearly not my smoothest race of the year! From then on I did my best not to let anyone else catch me and managed to pass a couple remaining runners for good measure. I hit the 3 mile sign around 19:40 or so and realized that without a Usain Bolt like effort over the final .1, I probably wouldn't sneak under 20 minutes again.

The closing stretch along the water (Canada peering at me from the other side) was filled with cheering fans and as much of a sprint as I could muster. Final tallies read: 29th of 1494 overall, 2nd of 41 in my age group, and 20:19 (6:33/mile). Not too shabby following a 10 hour drive from Philly. Meggo managed to finish in the top 10 for the girls and snag overall in her age group.

The race must have been an omen as well, as Nova would go on to finish second in its game later that night...