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| Race number and jingle bells for the shoes |
I had talked with Kim and the plan was for us to meet at her house and she would drive as parking is always a challenge. Once I got to Kim's we picked up Jean and then made our way to the race. We had to walk a short distance from where we parked to the start as the parking lot was full already. As we were walking, I saw Jessica and told her that I read her blog and she said "oh, hi!' We continued walking and we saw our friend, Michelle, and said hello. Once to the start line, I ran into my coworker, Danielle, and I talked with her for a few minutes before heading to use the restroom one last time before the start of the race. I went back into the building to get warm and Kim was talking with a young girl who was running her first 5K and we realized she didn't have her race number yet so I went ahead and grabbed it for her and then Kim and I headed to the start line. There were a lot of people doing the race so the start was incredibly crowded. Eventually I was able to find a good pace and go with it. I clocked mile 1 at 8:05. I will take it with all the congestion that was going on. I worked on increasing my pace after the first mile. Seeing the leaders headed back towards the finish line was definitely motivational. I had just finished a mile and they were just about done with mile 2. Amazing! I continued to try and run a challenging, yet comfortable pace and was happy with the 7:39 on my watch at mile 2. Shortly after mile 2 I saw Jean on the course and said hello. As I continued on into mile 3 my knee did remind me it was there when I would lengthen my stride. I did slow down a bit and clocked mile 3 at 7:44. With just .10 to go I tried to push it into the finish. Overall, I did pretty well with that final push at 6:52 pace. Perhaps the look on my face in this picture tells the story of that last .10 best.
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| For the record, I did pass the guy in front of me before the finish line |
Of course it's a good thing I didn't have another mile to run because there is no way I would have been able to maintain that crazy pace! I noticed Jessica as soon as I crossed the finish line so I went up to her and formally introduced myself. A few seconds later Kim and Jean finished the race. I also got to see my coworker, Danielle, finish her race. I knew I hadn't placed in my age group because the ladies in the 35-39 age group are speedy. I was quite happy with 17th out of 127 in my age group. Kim and I said goodbye to Jean and headed out for a little cool down run. About 1/4 mile into it we ran into my coworker, EJ, and we stopped and he asked about my knee and we talked for a bit. As we continued on with our cool down, the pain in my knee diminished greatly. I was quite happy about that. One last hello to another coworker, Kelly, and Kim and I were back at her car with an additional 2 miles run. Overall, it was a great race with ideal weather conditions!!
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| 3.1 run and done |
