Main Street Mile Race Report

After about seven months of listening to my running friends tell me how much fun the Main Street Mile is, I finally have my own opinion of it — and it's not great!

I was not the least bit nervous about this run during the days leading up to it. I mean, it's only a mile, why would I be nervous?

The Main Street Mile is one-mile race, part of which is downhill. It's the perfect race for a mile PR. The website says it best: "We're talking fire starting, rubber burning, unleash your cheetah kind of fast." Here's the elevation chart:

I met my friends Friday evening and boarded the bus that would take us to the start of the point-to-point one-mile race. The race is run in three heats, depending on your projected finish time. I was in the first heat, but our bus pulled up to the start just as the first group of runners started. Whoops! So I jumped in with the second group.

 

Christa, Christy, Aimee, Michelle, Me and Julie, before the Main Street Mile. 

It was at the start that it hit me. As a distance runner, I have never sprinted a mile in my life. I'm also not a fan of running downhill. Some runners love a nice decline in elevation, but I have a slight fear of rolling down the hill bowling ball style, taking out any runners in my way. While this might do wonders for my pace, I'm not sure others would appreciate being knocked down like my own personal bowling pins. 

I took off ridiculously fast. I glanced down at my Garmin and saw that I was right at a 5-minute mile. Knowing that would never end well, I slowed down a bit. I was huffing and puffing before I reached a quarter of a mile. It was horrible! I started the decline and my nerves about running downhill quickly changed to pure bliss. But the bliss was short-lived and I was back on flat ground before I knew it. 

I'm in the blue shirt and feeling awful at this point!!

I crossed the finish line at 6:35 — by far my fastest mile ever — and struggled to start breathing normally again. I spent the next few minutes complaining about how much I hated the race. One of my friends — a fellow Main Street Mile virgin until that evening — found me and told me how much she hated it as well. She said she'd rather run 10 miles any day, and I agreed. Looking back a couple days later, it doesn't seem as bad as I made it out to be. I probably will run it again, and will shoot to beat my 6:35 mile (even though the thought of that makes me cringe). But I did go for a nice 10-mile run yesterday. I took my time and ran a nice, slow, non-record breaking 9:22 pace, and I loved it!