Race Report: Trick or Treat Trail Run 5k

I woke up Saturday morning super excited and not at all nervous, which was a welcomed change for a race morning! I even got to sleep in since the race didn't start until 10am! I got my costume together and was super bummed I had forgotten to get eye make up and hair spray as my costume was pretty boring with it. And THEN I remembered that I had face paint from last year's costume in the closet. So naturally the face paint became eye shadow, AND hair dye. I crossed my fingers that I wouldn't end up with temporary blue and red hair.

NOW I'm ready for a race.

Toni and I got there an hour early to get in a 2 mile warm up with strides. It was COLD so we warmed up not in costume. My shirt was a cotton tee and I knew I would sweat profusely and then immediately freeze as soon as I was done running. No thanks! We got in our warm up and then changed in my car. Most of eye make up had sweated off in those first two miles. Oops. We did some warm ups and before too long we were ready to go!

The race started and I was shocked at how many people flew by me. I haven't ran a legit (paid for) 5k in YEARS! I'm used to doing the free Monday night 5ks where I'm one of the faster ones there. Eeps! I settled into a just sub-8 pace and thought that maybe we did our warm up too early, as I was starting to get cold from standing around and my legs just felt...heavy.

I passed a few people in that first mile and attempted to set targets on the backs of those in front of me! 

Mile 1 7:57

Perfect, right on pace.

Except I was tired. And fading, and was only 33% done with the race. Uff da. Usually mile 2 is a struggle for me mentally, and I rally on the third mile, so I attempted to just work as hard as I could to not fade as badly as I wanted to. The people who's targets I had placed on their back were fading too, but instead of using that to gain on them, I kept the same amount of distance between us. I hit the turn around in 12:10 and was stoked thinking I could finish sub 24:30. Renewed motivation! Let's go! 

Mile 2 8:11

I passed a kid, and we leap frogged for awhile, but I just didn't have another gear. I kept telling myself I would go with .75 miles left (it's just one final 1200m interval on the track!), and then half mile (only 2 laps, NBD!), but it wasn't until I saw the 6 mile sign (there was a 10k going on simultaneously) that I could convince my legs/brain to pick it up. 

Mile 3 8:25

I must've picked it up a bit the final stretch, because I look like I'm finishing strong, and my watch says I was running in the 6's for pace. Ok then.

My final time was 24:50 (so yeah just a little bit of a positive split :P), for a pace of 8:11. I didn't hit my A goal of sub 8 pace, but I did come in under 25 so I'm pretty stoked about that! 

My average HR was 163 and my max was 173. Despite not running as well, or feeling as strong as I did in the last "5k" I was pretty surprised to see that my heart rate data was quite a bit higher for this race. No wonder it didn't *feel* great, my body was working a lot harder. Interesting!

I got 6th in my 30-39 AG and 21st female. Toni KILLED it and snagged a sub 23 5k like I knew she would. She also won her AG. #goals

Race Result

Overall36 / 305 (11.8%)

Ages 30 - 396 / 77 (7.8%)

Gender21 / 230 (9.1%)

Most of these lovely photos are brought to you by KYLE who skipped fishing to watch me run for approximate 17 seconds. Maybe the short shorts had something to do with it. YOU DECIDE. 

Pugoween

Back in October, we had Ollie's favorite holiday: Pugoween. This year, I wanted her to be Pughetti. I picked up some fabric, yarn, giant styrofoam balls, and brown spray paint. Kyle contributed two nights before by spray painting Ollie's meat balls.

The night before Pugoween I set about constructing her costuming. Essentially just hot gluing everything to the fabric. It took maybe ten minutes to make. That's a far cry from the hours my mom has spent in previous years of constructing her costumes. Sorry mom!

I found one of her smaller sweaters and attached the fabric to it with safety pins. She tried it on and looked amazing. We fell asleep with Pugoween costume championships dancing in our heads.

 

For anyone that questions whether Ollie has fun dressing up or not, I present to you Exhibit A. All the smiles, on the tail wagging. All the cute. She tied for first place. So our streak continues!

 

This picture just cracks me up. A hot dog sniffing the butt of spaghetti.