Way back on Friday, July 18th I ran the Swarthmore Lion’s Independence Eve 8K.  (Latest race recap ever, I know!)  As the name suggests, the “Independence Eve” 8K was supposed to be held on July 3rd but due to severe storms it was postponed.  This was fine with me – the make up date ended up being a beautiful, low-humidity July evening.  I love it when the weather cooperates on race day!

Swarthmore is a quiet residential town located west of Philadelphia in Delaware County, PA.  The race started near the borough hall at 7PM and the course wound through the beautiful wooded campus of Swarthmore College before coming back through the tiny town center and looping around on neighborhood streets.  There were around 100 runners (including lots of very fast kids!!) which I thought was an ideal size after experiencing the Media 5 Mile’s 1600 competitors.

Swarthmore 8K start on Park Avenue

I started off at a nice steady pace (7:58) as the first mile took us onto Swarthmore College’s campus and up a long, winding hill.  I knew the hill was coming (but was still surprised by how steep it was!) and I remember feeling encouraged by the fact that we would soon get to run back down the hill at around the 2nd mile marker.  Sure enough, what goes up must come down and I happily cruised down the hill as Milky Chance’s “Stolen Dance” pumped through my earbuds with a comfortable second mile split of 8:03.

“Stolen Dance” is my new favorite running song, second only Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound,” which Pandora thoughtfully started to play just as I felt like I was losing some steam as I passed the 3 mile marker.  I really tried to pick up my pace, but that 4th mile still ended up being my slowest.  As I reached the 4 mile point a spectator was calling out splits.  Very helpful in theory, but actually extremely UNhelpful because she clearly had assumed that the race started promptly at 7:00:00 PM (it didn’t) SO, she was giving us times that were about 2 1/2 minutes slower than they should have been.  I was crushed for about 200 yards after hearing her call out 34:34 as I passed (how could I have slowed down to an 11 minute 4th mile?!?) until my Runkeeper belatedly chimed in to tell me that my 4th mile split was in fact 8:19 and that my total race time so far was still in the 32’s.  That cheered me right up, especially as I realized that I was on track to crush my old 5 mile PR of 42:47.  YIPPEE!!!

As the finish line clock swam into view I was completely shocked to see it still ticking away in the low 40s. !!!  I decided that I was going to cross that line by 40:30 and I sprinted towards the finish, leaning across the electronic chip line like I was back in a college 100m hurdle race (in the heat of the moment I forgot that this doesn’t remotely matter in a chip-timed distance race, but whatever..).  My clock finish time was exactly 40:30 and my chip time was 40:28.  WOOHOO!!!!!

40:30!

Swat 8K Runkeeper Stats

Sprinting towards the finish!!!

I ran a cool down and got back to the borough hall just as the awards were starting.  I was pleasantly surprised to get a 2nd place age group medal (there were only 5 females total in my age group) but mostly I’m just thrilled by my 5 mile time.  A 40:30 finish means that I averaged an 8:06 pace and before that slow 4th mile time my 5K split was likely sub-25.  After spending all Winter and Spring hunting down a sub-25 5K time I’m tickled that I can apparently run that fast now in a 5 MILE race with a huge uphill climb.  I can’t wait to see what I can do in some road 5Ks once the weather starts to get nice this Fall!!  🙂

AG Medal

Running thru Swarthmore at around the halfway point

That’s enough blogging for today – the weather is gorgeous this afternoon so I’m headed out to a local running store’s group 5 mile run.  Happy running, everyone!

Miles since last post:  67.4
Days since last post:  16
Avg. Daily Miles since 7/18/13: 4.79
2014 TOTAL MILES: 983.8

Related Posts:
•  Cam’s ‘Moonlight’ 5K (7/10/14)
•  Media 5 Miler (6/20/14)
•  Radnor Conservancy 5K Trail Run (6/1/14)
•  Rocky Run 5K Trail Run (5/30/14)
•  Run for Victory 5K (5/18/14)
•  Elwyn 5K (5/3/14)
•  St. Tim’s 5K (4/26/14)
•  Rick’s Run 5K (4/19/14)
•  Las Vegas Security 5K (4/3/14)
•  Color Out Cancer 5K (3/30/14)
•  Athlete’s Closet March 5 Miler (3/1/14)
•  Athlete’s Closet February 5K (2/1/14)
•  Athlete’s Closet January 5K (1/4/14)
•  New Year’s Eve 5K at the YMCA (12/31/13)
•  Athlete’s Closet December 5K (12/14/13)
•  Turkey Trot 5K (11/28/13)
•  Trinity Presbyterian 5K (11/2/13)
•  Oy Vey 5K (10/27/13)
•  Fueled Up & Fired Up 5K (10/19/13)
•  Run-A-Muck 5K (9/22/13)
•  The Challenge Begins: 100 Mile iPad Mini Challenge (7/23/13)