Scotland Run Review: It's Not about Winning, It's about Looking Good

This weekend brought the NYRR's annual Scotland run - along with about 7,000 runners, face paint, and an awesome amount of plaid.  My friend Kathleen and I signed up for the race together to ensure we'd have some intermediate goals to keep us on track for Brooklyn Half training.   Kathleen e-mailed me after registering, "PS can we wear kilts or at least something plaid for the Scotland one?!"  and I was immediately pumped for the race.  I'm a firm believer in, "It's not about winning, it's about looking good," because, let's face it...I wouldn't even win if they let me into the old folks' category.  Case in point, the Women's Age
Group Awards from the 2011 NYC Marathon that I completed:

The ONLY category whose winner did not beat me was 80+.
Perhaps next marathon's goal should be to beat the 75-79 crowd?

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps I'll refine that past statement.  Yes, yes, it's not about winning for me because I can't even win the 75-79 age group, but usually it's not even about looking good.  You've seen my hiking outfit.  I just can't seem to justify spending loads of money on cute workout clothes when I have old/ugly stuff that still fits [even if it's my sister's hand-me-down Umbro soccer shorts from her 3rd grade traveling team, which I just threw out this year because they finally got a hole in them.  Yes, I'm 28].  But, I am almost always game for a good costume event.  It's usually true that if you invite me to your costume party, you will not be disappointed.

Finding costumes for the Scotland run, however proved to be a bit of a challenge.  Of course there are professional places in Scotland that will produce a beautiful kilt and ship it to you, but that was much nicer than what we had in mind (or were willing to spend).  Finding a cheap, costume version of a kilt was not as easy as I had hoped.  Google "Dreamgirl Women's Lassie" and "Sexy-Men's Kilt Pouch- in one size" and you'll see what I mean...

Fortunately, Kathleen and I were able to come up with a creative [non-slutty] way to celebrate our [non-]Scottish roots.  Kath found some Sally Hansen pink argyle nail polish strips and I rounded out our costumes with pink plaid socks.

All in all, I think we wound up much more comfortable (during the run AND at brunch with Kathleen's family afterwards) given the direction we went, and paired with the pleating on the back of my Lululemon skirt and the other coordinating pink garb we each came up with, we rocked the girly-Scottish look.

The race itself was a clockwise loop around Central Park, which some people feel is the easier direction to go, and the morning's crisp spring air was perfect for running. Those conditions coupled with our rad outfits gave me hope that it could be a great race.  I guess I wasn't really factoring in the whole "I haven't run 5 miles since February, and I can't remember the last time I ran 6."  But, the Colon Cancer Challenge had gone well on Sunday, so I was feeling pretty optimistic.  I finished the race in 1:03:52, which meant a pace of 10:19 per mile - about 49 seconds per mile slower than Sunday's 4 miler, and nearly 5 minutes slower than my personal best from June 2010.

Kathleen and I rocking some day-glo pink knee socks.  To the single ladies out there - these seemed to be a great conversation starter with the gents ;-)

This wasn't quite the "great race" that I foolishly thought I might be able to pull out of [the free, handed-out, blue Scotland] hat, like I somehow had on Sunday, but it wasn't a terrible starting off point now that I need to get going on longer distances to prep for the Brooklyn Half.  I'll consider it a decent square 1 with which to get that racing training underway. Interestingly, it was also within a minute or two of what Jeff Galloway's Magic Mile would have predicted for me.  I'm interested to see if it continues to be an accurate predictor for my upcoming races as I progress through training.

One take away I did come out of the race with was that I probably should have given myself more rest.  Between pushing myself for a fast [for-me] time at the 4-miler on Sunday and Saturday's race, I worked out every single day - often doing things that left my legs pretty fatigued.  It was great to cross a few items off of my April list and to work out every day, but my legs definitely felt heavy while climbing all of those park hills and I didn't feel like they had any push left the last few miles.  Obviously this could also be because I'm out of shape, but I do feel like at least a day or two of rest could have helped my time.  

So, I guess you could say it was a great race after all because it's got me up and running for the BK half and taught me something about how to better prepare for races in the future.  Not so bad.  It was also awesome to run part of the race with a friend.  Kathleen did great - finishing a minute or so ahead of me in the first 10k distance she's raced since high school.  Congrats, Kathleen!