Race Report: 125th Celebration 5k

Saturday marked my hometown's 125th celebration.  To ring in the celebration they put on a 5k race and 1 mile fun run/walk.  Apparently the last time a road race was held was for the centennial (when I was one).  I figured it'd be my shot to try to do well, although I would like to think I could whip up on the whippersnappers when I'm 51 for the 150th celebration. ;)  I wasn't able to fall asleep until almost 2am the night before the race because of the loud music at the street dance, and slept horribly in my old bed.  6am came quickly and I was up and at 'em.  I jogged to the starting line, as it's about 1/3 of a mile from my house.  The race was extremely well organized, which was a relief after last weeks s-show.  The girl who was putting it on ran XC for a big university here in SoDak, so she knew what was up.  The shirts were awesome.  Before we knew it we were off!

The group started off pretty fast, and I settled in to my pace.  I knew that we had to run into a strong head wind for miles .5 - 1.5 (20-30 mph winds, with 40+ mph wind gusts = holy hell!) and knew it was going to drain me, so I tried to compensate for that during the first half mile that wasn't in to the wind.  Once we turned in to the wind it was just a fight to put one foot in front of the other.  I let a couple of guys pass me to use them as wind shields, but then they slowed down so I was forced to pass them and go it alone.  At the turn around point I noticed I was in 4th and wanted to really push it to the end.

Mile 1 7:42

Unfortunately once the wind was at our back it was h-o-t!  I started sweating up a storm.  I was following a gal who looked like a stronger runner than me for about 3/4 of a mile, when I looked down at my watch and realized we were running at an 8:30 pace.  Wth?  I moved to pass her, and she let me so I was happy.

Mile 2 8:18

Most of the race was our "long track route" from high school, so I was very familiar with how much of the race was left.  After I passed the one gal, there was no one else left in sight.  I learned that I'm a bit of a wuss when there's no one to catch.  I crossed the road thinking we would be turning to the finish line at the left.  Then I saw the runner ahead of me run around a vehicle before the finish line, so I weaved back to the right hand side of the road.  Once I got closer I realized we didn't have to go around the vehicles, so I weaved back to the left side.  Silly Jerbear.

I turned the corner and sprinted the final block to the finish line.  My finishing sprint was really strong, so I knew I slacked a little bit during the race.

Mile 3 8:05
.1 :23 (6:48 pace/6:17 max pace)

Final time was 24:28 for a pace of 7:54.  I was slightly bummed with my time, because I was shooting for a 23:30, but realized it was a VERY good time for the wind.

I finished as the 3rd place female and 2nd in my age group.  Yes, the ex-XC girl was in the 20-29 age group and won the race. :p  She ran really well and finished in the low 22's, so good for her.  They gave away medals for the top 2 in each age group and I got a super sweet silver medal.  This was the race my mom was contemplating participating in, and was bummed to find out that only one person ran/walked in her age group and she could've gotten 2nd.

After I crossed the finish line, I saw our old high school XC coach, and he just started shaking his head.  He commented that he really wished he could've gotten his hands on me for distance work in high school.  (Random note:  I was 100% a basketball girl in HS, and in SoDak basketball season was in the fall.  He convinced me to run XC and do basketball.  I ran 2-3 morning workouts before my basketball coach found out about it and threatened to not start me if I kept running.  And so my HS XC dreams ended. :P)  I told him that the more I do distance running, the more I wish I would've done distance as well, but think that I was far too lazy to put in the effort to be a good long distance runner back then.  He made a comment that you can make someone into an endurance runner but not everyone was given the speed that I was.  I was super flattered and thought it was very sweet for him to go out of his way to tell me that.  I brought him up to speed on my current racing and about my goal to qualify for Boston in the next few years of racing.  He was pretty impressed and it was cool to have someone validate my running the way he did.  :)

Modeling my coveted medal.

Team Green and I after the race. My parents loved their new shirts.

Super cute dry-fit shirts and AG medals for $20?  Yes please!

• Check out Melissa's 2 year anniversary giveaway
• Check out DC Rainmaker's Garmin giveaway