Yesterday, Sunday October 17, was the first UPRRP 5k, to raise funds for the University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Piedras campus scholarship program. It was also my second 5k of the year.
The entire race took place across the university’s Rio Piedras campus in San Juan. I had been there many times for different occasions, from a summer program in high school, cooking class, dance class, to just visiting the museum. However, I had always been to the same places and had never seen much of the big campus.
I imagined this was going to be a big event just because it was the University of Puerto Rico and a lot of people would be interested in both walking and/or running but there were more people than I imagined. I first realized how many people there were as I stood waiting for the race to start and I looked at the crowd in front of and behind me.
As we waited in the crowd in front of the student center, waiting for the race to begin, my sister in law, Stephanie, looked a little nervous about being trampled by the crowd when the race began. This was her first 5K, but I reassured her she would be fine, the fast runners were in front, they would start before we did and everyone would space out once the race began.
When we set off, I started running and lost Stephanie, who would be walking with her peers. I wasn’t running fast, but at a moderate pace. I wanted my time to be better than it was in October, but I didn’t want to get tired or get dizzy, like I did last time. I would just speed up a little bit just to get ahead of people who were slower than me, but when the path was clear I would slow back down. That way, I was able to run all the way up to the first oasis at the end of the first mile in just about 12 minutes.
I took two water bottles at the oasis, drank one and poured the other one over my head and I did the same at the rest of the oasis along the way. I also kept switching between running and walking; my goal was to run more this time and I found different ways to motivate me along the way. One was to mark different spots ahead of me and try to make it running to that spot. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
I would also dare myself to run past people who I noticed had been near but ahead of me since the beginning. At one point I was walking behin a woman and her son and she kept using different strategies to help the kid keep going. First, I heard her tell the boy “run at a slower pace, but don’t walk, keep running”, so I followed her instructions and ran. Later she was helping him with some breathing exercises and I imitated that too. I don’t know who they were but this really helped, so thank you lady.
As I ran, I sadly didn’t look around me to actually see the parts of the campus I had never seen and I didn’t know existed. I was just looking in front of me to make sure I was going the right way and I didn’t fall. Before I knew it, I was in the final stretch and the best part was, it was downhill, so I decided to run it.
I looked at the timer to my left and it showed 39 minutes. I was so happy I made it in less than 40 minutes. That was my goal and I beat it. Even if it was a few seconds, I did it!
I later saw my timing and it was 39.23 and out of 1,076 runners, I came in 592.
This is the second race I have done since I joined the group Freddy’s Runners at the end of September and I have already completed two races. And have already slightly improved my time, so thank you Freddy!
I’m already thinking about doing another 5K in December.
Unstoppable María 