The Winship Win the Fight 5K is a special event for me. It was my first running race in October 2013, after losing about 40 pounds over the previous year. I even trained for six months for this first 5K race, guided by a couch-to-5K app to get into shape. In the course of increasing my distances to 10Ks, 10-milers, half-marathons, and two marathons over the past year, I've been taking better care of my own health, hoping for several more healthy decades. But in the past year, three friends have been diagnosed with cancer and have recently undergone treatment. All three are a few years younger than me. All three have led healthy lifestyles. All three have long been physically active, including running. Their experiences show that cancer can strike any one of us.
One of these friends, Judy Tennell, is a regular runner with Tucker Running Club (TRC). She works as a caregiver at the Center for Rehabiliative Medicine on the Emory campus. Earlier this year, she shared with friends in TRC that she would be undergoing treatment for early stage breast cancer. Fortunately her prognosis is good, thanks to early detection. But even so, she had to go through radiation treatment and several procedures to remove cancerous and pre-cancerous tissue. I've admired that Judy has remained active throughout her treatment, and she and I ran together on several Wednesday evening runs with TRC over these months. Judy was successfully treated at the Winship Cancer Institute (WCI) in the Emory Healthcare system, and she ran this morning's race wearing a survivor's bib.
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| Selfie with Judy shortly before the race |
The Winship 5K is a fundraiser for the WCI, and typically has more than 3000 participants each year. Arriving at the race about an hour before the start, I was impressed to see many participants wearing T-shirts for creatively named teams, including Cancer Crushers, To Kale with Brain Cancer, Lungs 'n Roses, to name just a few. Judy's radiation oncologist was present as part of team EmoRayders. I'm grateful to running friends Priscilla Hammond, Liz and Josh Mann, Brian Minor, and Carl Line for their donations to this year's fundraiser. The fundraising site will be open for a few more weeks, if any additional readers are interested in supporting the WCI.
Arriving on campus more than an hour before the start of the race, I warmed up with about 2 miles of running at an easy pace around part of the race route, as the volunteers gathered at their designated positions, and then I joined the rest of the participants gathering on the Emory Quadrangle, just in time to hear from this year's race marshall, Dominique Wilkins. He was an all-star forward for the Atlanta Hawks from 1982 - 1994, and is currently vice-president of basketball operations for the Hawks. He is a beloved goodwill ambassador in the Atlanta community. Although his playing days with the Hawks preceded my time in Atlanta, I remember watching him on television in some all-star games from that era.
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| A couple of minutes before the start |
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| Race marshal Dominique Wilkins, in the blue shirt |
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| 3000 more participants! |
Before long, it was time to begin the race. The temperature was 68 deg F with 88% humidity, but the cloudy sky made conditions feel quite comfortable. I decided to take a position closer to the starting line than in past years, about 50 feet behind the lead group, hoping that I was in a group aiming for a 24 - 25 minute finish. Dominique Wilkins was in front of the group with the starter's pistol. At 8:30 am on the dot, the starting gun went off, and so did the runners. I quickly got up to speed, making a left turn racing downhill toward Peavine Creek and passing the chemistry building within a couple of minutes. Turning onto Eagle Row, I knew that the rest of the first mile would be uphill. Near the top of the hill, I saw a few people on the sidewalk with Atlanta Track Club RUN LEAD uniforms - and then recognized TRC friends Linda Bode Phinney and Lindy Liu, who started loudly cheering for me as I raced past. I think they were leading the marathon trainees on the 22-mile long run, as I remember running through the Emory campus on that long run when I was in the marathon training program last fall. Mile 1 completed in 7:30.
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| Familiar turf for me. |
Running through campus and across Clifton Road, there was a water station in front of the WCI building. I gratefully accepted a cup of water, and took a walk break for just a few seconds. OK, it was probably 20 seconds. But it really helped when I got back to speed, and I caught up to and passed a few of the people that had been running with me before the water station. We had continued to go uphill as we turned onto Haygood Road, and with relief we finally reached the highest point of the race route. Turning onto North Decatur Road, I picked up a little speed, but so did a couple of other guys that passed me doing what I estimated was a sub-7 min / mile pace. After crossing Clifton Road again, the mile 2 alert sounded at 15:20 elapsed, 7:50 for mile 2.
I was pleased to run two sub-8 minute miles, and continued running quickly through the Emory Village traffic circle, re-entering campus on Eagle Row, my usual drive-in entrance to campus. At 2.50 miles, 19 minutes elapsed. The winner had definitely finished by this time. I had 1 km to go, and it was going to be uphill once again. We were now passing the end of the walking group. I was beginning to struggle. Looking at my Garmin data, my pace was at least 1 min / mile slower going up the hill the second time around. A sub-24 minute finish was likely out of the picture for today. A few other runners were passing me.
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| It took me noticeably longer to cover the same uphill stretch the second time around. The bracket marks the 0.42 mile stretch run twice in this race. |
But I knew the route well, and kept telling myself that I could push through for the last half-mile. Turning into the center of campus, past the construction zone for the new Student Center, the mile 3 alert sounded, 8:05 for mile 3 and 23:25 elapsed. This also marked the beginning of a slight downhill into the finish area. It seemed to take a while to reach the finish line - turns out the distance was 0.18 miles from the mile 3 alert. I guess I didn't run the tangents very well! As the finish line came into view, I saw 24:40 on the clock, and Dominique Wilkins giving high-fives to the runners in front of me as they crossed the timing mat at the finish. As I neared the finish line, Mr. Wilkins was not looking at me - I wanted a high-five! I might have slowed down a step or two to give him a chance to turn in my direction - and he did - and I received a high-five from the All-Star! Then stopped my watch: 24:47, with 24:42 was my official chip time! Despite the exertion, I managed to regain normal breathing within a few minutes, as I circled back to cheer on some of the other runners into the finish.
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| Judy in the last tenth of a mile |
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| My Garmin stats for the race |
I could tell that there weren't that many runners in front of me, and after doing a cooldown run, I returned to the Quad to chat with a few friends, and to wait for the awards announcement. When the announcer got to the 55-59 male age group, I held my breath as he called out first place, second place, and then ... "third place, Frank McDonald." Hurray! I was so happy to win a medal, especially in this meaningful race.
Results were posted quickly, and were available when I first checked in the afternoon. I was 51st to cross the finish line, although probably around 70th based on chip time. Then I saw that fourth place in my age group was 54th place, only a few seconds behind! I'm glad that I pushed myself as hard as I did!
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