Well, this race ended up being a total surprise!
Ha ha, not a surprise that I was doing it (quite a few from my multisport club had been planning on doing this Friday night race for awhile) or how the race was organized, but my personal effort!
In my mind I was going to do speedwork once a week in October to prep for this race. In reality, I did it once – I’ve made long, slow miles my focus.
So come race day, I looked up my time from last year on this course (a different race but several in the Zee Bee Run Squad series use the same course) and saw I ran a 25:27. “If I have a really good day, maybe I could beat that,” I thought. But I really had my doubts about maintaining 8:00 minute miles.
The race started just after 6:00 pm and I took off, feeling great. I glanced down at my watch and saw a mid 7:00 pace. “Crap! I went out too fast! I can’t maintain this!”
But I did for two miles (7:24, 7:35), and felt awesome, like I was hardly working. It wasn’t until I started to get the typical stomach cramp right before mile 2, that I slowed down, running that mile in just under 8:00. My legs and lungs felt good but my stomach said no – I need to try a tip my friend told me after the race – breathe deeper to get more air to my diaphragm.
I sped up to a 6:38 pace for the last tenth because I heard someone coming up behind me – ha ha, they totally had more energy and passed me! Luckily, my time, 23:29 was still good enough for 2nd in the 30-34 age group! Woo hoo! I wasn’t sure I’d ever place in that age group!
We had six Efit runners and everyone did really well – we had five age group placements!
And Kelly, my running partner, got a PR, and Dawn got her first ever age group award! Awesome!!!
I really enjoyed doing this with the Efit crew. Ha ha, especially cause there is a hella long (hour+) raffle before awards and it was fun to hang with friends during that!
The last race in this series is in four weeks! I wonder if I’ll have another surprise then. Ha ha, just kidding – I won’t get greedy!
A few other notes:
- I ran with my headphones and the beats helped! Although some songs worked better than others. Weird.
- They ran out of adult sized t-shirts in this year’s race shirt and offered a shirt from last year. A nice offer, but I don’t need more shirts, so I got a kid sized shirt for Kelly to take for her kids. I liked the design and phrase on it!
- Ha ha, I also sent Kelly home with my raffle prize – I won the same thing as last year.
- (TMI) I had the taste of blood in my mouth for most of the race. Weird? I think I may have spit up a bit too, after. That could just be my nose being all dried out. I am fighting the beginning of a cold this week and spend most of the night sneezing, after the race.
- I wore my Asics GEl-Lyte33s and think the lighter shoes gave me a mental (and maybe physical?) boost!
- I studied the course map a bit so I could run the tangents – that helped!
- The results for this race are all over the place – last year, the winner of my age group ran it in 29:25. This year, it was 22:09, me at 23:29, and third at 31:18. You never know who will show up! I feel lucky I placed!
- The results and free (!!!) photos were up late last night, after the race! I love that!
- It’s funny (to me, that) this is the second “Full Moon” 5K I have done this year!
- Time to get smaller shorts. You can see in my finish line pic that they are creepin’ way up my leg. Classy. Ha ha. And that smile? That is because last year my finish line pic looked like this.
super speedy! AND YAY for needing to buy smaller clothes!
Damn girl that’s fast, good job.
Congrats on the 2nd place finish!!! So speedy. I always have a weird smell in my nose (ew I know) when I run too hard. I hope you’re feeling better and it’s not too serious!
Congrats on placing! I don’t like night races but I actually usually tend to run faster in them. Have you found the same?
Thanks! Running at night isn’t my prime time either, but I do seem to run faster if I can’t see the pace on my watch. Something about running in the dark just makes me go 🙂
I always FEEL like I’m moving faster at night, but I never really am. haha
Congratulations! That’s a KILLER time!
KIM
holy smolly – speedy run! Way to go!
Yay, Kim!
Congratulations! Girl, you are fast!
You go, girl! You crushed those expectations. And made me want to do a night race.
Do you have any night race options coming up? 🙂
Dayum! Congrats on the 2nd AG and the surprise time 🙂 I would have thought you had a speedy time in those legs if you didn’t run super long or have hard workouts the day of/before. Lol. I’m so happy the lighter Asics made a difference even if it was just psychological. 😉 I’ve read a few blogs discussing skimpy shorts/briefs for racing and all the gals said it provided a mental boost to be in something perceived to be fast on race day. But you know me and my love of light shoes- those extra ounces would add up over a few miles- so mental and physical advantage for sure! And what exactly is the thing you won both years in the raffle? A snowman magic wand? 😉
It’s a solar powered lawn ornament 😉
Congrats on a good race and 2nd age group! Woo-hoo! Hope that you have celebrated appropriately too! And it sounds like a great race experience in general.
Thanks! We did – went out for dinner with friends after! 🙂
Yay, congrats on the age group finish! That’s awesome and sounds like you had a great run 🙂
WOW! Great job at the race! I like your bootay shorts too. Rawr! 🙂
I’m so glad you all had each other to hang out with and that you all had a great race too! I’ll have to try to get down for the next one!
GREATTTTTTTTTT pace lady!!!! Congrats!
Nice job!!! Isn’t it such a great boost to surprise yourself like that?
Speed demon! Well done!