Race Report: Run 4 A Reason 5K... and a new PR!

It's been a while since I ran a 5K independent from a triathlon (March to be exact) and yesterday, was finally the day to see if I improved at all on my time.

The benefits from the run were used to support the local HIV/AIDS chapter as well as mission work at the Bongolo Evangelical Hospital in Gabon, Africa.

Yesterday was HOT... okay, well at 7:30 AM 79F isn't necessarily hot, but 91% humidity is oppressive to say the least. If a person can run in this soupy stuff, they can run in anything! LOL! Scott & I arrived around 6:30AM. Check-in was super easy b/c it was a local race and there were only about 150 people running it. This was my first race where timing chips weren't being used, so that saved a check-in step.

During check-in I finally met my blog buddy Kim!!! Frankly, going into the race, I was more excited about meeting Kim, than I was about the race itself. Kim was everything I expected her to be. Super friendly, funny... and chica has amazing legs! Girl, how did you get those gams??? :p That must be why you are a speedy thing... even without the practice! After chatting with Kim for a while, she broke away to do a warm-up run with her running group and Scott and I did an easy 1-mile jog around the campus for my warm-up. By the time we returned to our starting point, I left Scott for a bit and did some strides on my own. Legs felt good to go!

The race started at exactly 7:30 AM (a new thing for me, b/c the big races that I've run are always late starts) and I lined up about 3 rows behind the speedy high school dudes and seasoned vets. Perfect positioning. I went out a bit fast (was running a 7:00 min/mile), but Garmie let me know and I slowed down a bit. The race was a typical 5K. Mile 1 seems to take forever to reach, mile 2 comes quickly, and mile 3 feels like 5 miles. The heat and humidity were disgusting, but the race folks had one H20 station set up (which was passed twice). I have found that drinking during a 5K is pretty much pointless and just wastes time; however, there's nothing like a cup of cool water poured down your back. So on the second pass by the aid station, I grabbed a cup and doused myself. Lovely! It was too much fun running with Kim during the race. We cheered each other on, gave each other high 5's as we ran passed each other! I love this girl!

Right around mile 2, I started to slowly pick off about 5 people who were in front of me. Chris K. told me that she likes to 'reel' people in during races and I forgot about doing this until after; however, passing those few people late in the race give me great motivation to keep turning those legs of mine over. At mile 3, I kicked in into high gear. I'm learning that I have a pretty good finishing kick b/c the other folks that I was running near also started kicking, but I managed to reach the timer first. Go me!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw '26' something. Official results showed that I crossed at 26:23. Talk about elated!!! I was honestly not expecting a PR for this race b/c of the heat, let alone a PR that knocked nearly 2 minutes off of my previous time! Holy crap! Talk about exciting! Smoothies, bananas, bagles... and all of the other post-run goodies awaited us back at the registration post-race. Scott & I had a spin class scheduled for 9:30 AM, but I wanted to stick around for the awards ceremony, so we hung out for a while and chatted some more with Kim and some of her running buds. Kim told me that she heard from a few people involved with the race that the course was a bit long. Garmie told me that I ran 3.11 miles, so perhaps this is true. Anyway, low and behold, I placed first in my age group. Albeit I was only first out of 6 other 30-34 year-old ladies, but still... yay! Overall, I ended up 30th out of 154. Kim placed 2nd in her age group as well! Yay! We bloggers rocked the house yesterday!!!

We had to duck out of the awards ceremony a bit early in order to get to spin, but what a terrific day! I don't plan on racing another 5K until November's Turkey Trot. I really need to concentrate on getting in the proper training for my Oly tri and having this race stuck in here sort of messed up my training schedule. I don't want to do that again. I am planning on doing a 10K sometime in October. I figure since I have to run one at the end of a tri in November, I ought to try racing one beforehand just so I can learn about the pacing.

ETA: Looks like someone is going to have to adjust her FIRST training paces now. Egads! You mean it's gonna get HARDER??? *gulp*

ETA2: Big 'hellos' to all of my blog friends. I'm soooo behind on blog reading, but I promise to catch up soon!