There were about 450 runners of all ages. Just enough people to make it exciting, but not so many that the start chutes clog up and take 5 minutes to get through.
I was on my own from pretty much the start. I did a fare amount of passing for the first half mile.
The course? Imagine all the hills of Thunder Road, but squeezed into a 5k. Yeah. Not a very PR friendly course. I don't think there was ONE stretch that was flat. Notta one! They weren't particularly steep or long hills, but they were one after another. It was either uphill or downhill.
I started pretty fast. In fact, I ran my fastest mile EVER at the beginning: 8:54! Dayum!! Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) I wasn't able to keep that pace up. My second mile was 9:17, my third was 9:27, and the last .1 miles was 7:34. The course went through the hilly Highland Creek neighborhood, which was full of beautiful blooming trees. These blooming trees were losing their blooms, and as I was gasping for air running up a hill around mile 2, I inhaled one of these blooms. It was the only time during the entire race I almost horked. Dis.gusting!
As I was coming up the hilly return road, I just had to take a walk break (I don't consider my first walk a break because I was gagging on a flower). When I looked at my Garmin, it read 23 minutes for 2.6 miles. That's when I knew a 28 something minute time was within reach. I ran as fast as my white legs would carry me and.... finished in 28:34!!!!!
I don't think I can really consider this a personal record. I mean, yes it's the fastest I've run a 5k ever, but I've never trained like this before either. To say I was going into this run expecting a PR sounds a like cocky. I went into this race knowing that I was in better shape and more prepared than any other time in my life, so I expected my time to improve. Thus, I'm going to call this a PI- "Personal Improvement."
I'm especially proud of mile 1 =) Going back to RW's Pace Calculator, a 28:34 5k time projects a 2:11 HM finish. That's about 4 minutes faster than my HM in February. I'm slowly going in the right direction for getting faster I guess. If I can continue to shave off 4 minutes each month and find a little extra luck on race day, I *might* be able to come close to 2 hours for the Hickory Half??
Look at my hubby, the Rock Star! This was his first 5k - I'm so proud of him!! He made the mistake of telling me he wants to do another one to see if he can improve his time. Well, well, well... I think we can work that out!!
David is wearing the race shirt from this year. It's black and made out of that fancy sweat wicking material. Material = good. Color = bad. A black shirt on a hot day... hmmm. I'm wearing my 'official race shirt' that my mom-in-law gave me during football season. Also notice that David is missing a bib number? Guess who forgot to put it on before we left the house? Men... ya gotta hold their hands all the time!! (he'll never read this so I feel safe in poking fun!! I love you honey :D ).
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