Flying Along At the Byrdsong 5K

It's been awhile since I ran a 5K road race--since Valentine's Day 1993 in Peoria, Illinois, to be exact. Since I was in Chicago for the weekend, my friend and I decided to run the Ricky Byrdsong Memorial Race in Evanston, just north of the city, along with nearly 1000 other runners. (Ricky Byrdsong was an African-American coach at Northwestern who was shot & killed in Skokie, IL by a white supremacist about a year ago.)

It was warm and muggy, but thankfully, the predicted rain held off. I sized up the competition and figured I had a pretty good chance of finishing well. I had a 2-tiered goal of running a) faster than 21 minutes and b) faster than 20. (I really like multiple-level goals, as it increases my chances of making one of them). I started off strong, slowly picked off the people who had gone out too fast, & settled in for the run out & back route through the pristine, pricey Northwestern Univ. neighborhood--with huge, historic homes and manicured lawns and pets. I never saw the 1st mile marker, but I went by the 2nd mile in 13:04 & a volunteer told me I was 13th woman. Barring natural disasters or getting hit by a bus (not likely in Evanston, with all the Mercedes, Jags, etc.), I knew I'd make the 21 minute goal, but wasn't sure about the 20. I worked the last mile hard; it seemed to last forever, especially the last stretch, because you could see the finish banner for about 3/4 mile.

I slowly crept up on a 30 or 40-something woman with an Evanston Running Club singlet (ERC), I heard footsteps behind me and, with less than 1/4 mile to go, a younger woman (YC-young chick) passed me. Then I passed ERC and YC was only a few meters ahead of me. With less than 100 meters to go, ERC came from behind & passed me. The three of us started sprinting and I caught up with & passed ERC again. Her response? "Shit!!!" Thanks to those grueling speed workouts to which I've been voluntarily subjecting myself, I somehow held on to finish ahead of ERC, and YC finished less than an arm's length ahead of me, I think. It's all kind of a blur. I finished in 20:12, short of my 2nd goal, but fast enough for a big PR (my time in 1993 was about 21:30). I hoped to win an age group award, but missed 3rd place in my age group by only 4 seconds or so. Evanston Running Club people walked away with lot of age group awards--at least one or two in my age group alone.

The quality of the post-race food was to Boston what Wegman's is to Aldi's. As my friend and I munched on our fresh fruit salad and put away our Eli's cheesecake and other food for later, a guy saw my High Noon singlet and came over to ask if I ran with HNAC. This guy--Skip--told me he lives in Elmira & knows Rick Hoebeke & other HNAC folks. He & a friend were taking a cross-country road trip and decided to run this race. So, greetings to everyone from Skip.

-- Esther Prins