Run the River 5K

There were some big storms last night and I was sort of nervous that my 5K would be rained out, but when I woke up at 5:45 am this morning, there was just a little bit of drizzle and it was a comfortable 60 degrees out. I drove about 25 minutes to Roswell and met up with Tina right away in the parking lot.

I got my number and we hung out for a while and then found Kristy who was running the 10K. (There were both a 5K and a 10K). I knew that Stacy was also running the 10K but I didn’t see her until later.

The 5K started at 7:30 and Tina and I lined up near the beginning of the start line. 7:30 came around and we were off. The race was advertised as flat and I was pleased to see that it really was. It was basically an out and back along a tree-lined, pretty street. I managed to stay right on Tina’s tail for the first mile but when I heard someone call out 8:35 at the mile marker, I knew that I needed to back off some or I would never be able to sustain my pace.

There was a water stop at the turnaround and I grabbed a cup of water and walked through it. I didn’t hear my time at the second mile, but I think I was still doing pretty well. Running faster than I normally do sort of caught up to me though and I had to take a few little walk breaks in the third mile. The last half mile or so was through a trail which was nice, but sort of annoying because there were a lot of wet leaves on the ground. I was feeling pretty tired, but when I passed the Mile 3 marker and heard 26 something, I was just like, “What??” and tried to give it my all for the last .1 miles.

I ended up crossing the finish line at 27:45 which is a minute and twenty seconds faster than my previous PR!

After the 5K, it was time for the 10K. Kristy, Stacy and Stacy’s friend Linda went to run their race while Tina, her husband and I waited around for the age group results and the raffle. This was Tina’s first race and she did amazing and even placed 3rd in her age group! Not many people can say that for their first race!!

Tina and her husband had to leave, so I managed to occupy myself by finding a free chair massage. Seriously, if there is a free massage somewhere, I will do it. This is actually the second free one that I’ve had this week! I finished just in the nick of time to see Kristy cross the finish line in around 52 minutes. We waited and saw both Stacy and Linda cross around 58 minutes. They’d both run 4 miles previous to the 10K which is totally badass. Unfortunately, I was busy being massaged and I missed seeing my friend Lisa cross the finish line but she did amazing too with a time of 48 or 49 minutes!

After the 10K, we stuck around for the age group results and Kristy placed 2nd in her age group! (My friend Lisa also placed third in hers!)

Although I didn’t win any time group prizes, I did win something else – a prize in the raffle!

They were giving away some seriously random stuff and I won two Brita filtered water bottles. Umm, okay.

I had so much fun doing this race. I think this is probably the first time that I’ve done a race with more than one other person and it was really fun to feed off everyone’s energy. Plus, we all did so great!

Then I went home and took a nap. Obviously.