Vinings Downhill – A Misnomer

This morning was the Vinings Downhill 5K.  The race started at 8, but they advised getting there by 7:30.  We live about a half hour away, so we left at 6:50 and headed west to Vinings.

(This would be a cute picture if I didn’t look like a giraffe or a turtle.  Seriously, my neck is not normally that long!)

We quickly met up with my friend Jaime and got our numbers before stopping at the Port-o-potties before the race began.  This year there were d-tags, so we just sort of stood in the middle of the pack when the race began.  I’ve done this race twice in the past so I thought I knew what I was in for.  The first part was a pretty steep downhill which felt easy as expected.

The race headed uphill before we got to the first mile marker which I thought was odd.  I distinctly remembered this hill being much closer to Mile 2 in previous years.  Though I wasn’t expecting it where it was, it was nice to get the “big” hill over with early in the race.  I kept chugging along but I think I’d been running too fast in the beginning and started to get a little tired.

There was a big downhill down Cobb Pkwy which was nice.  But what went down went up again and while the original course would have taken us down a small street at the end of the downhill portion, this race took us back up for a while.  It wasn’t a huge incline by any means, but it was more uphill than it’d been in previous years.   The end of the race was uphill too.  Ugh!

Last year, my time was 27 something.  This year?  30:45.  Eye roll.  I think it was partially the hillier course (which wasn’t hilly, especially by Atlanta standards, but it wasn’t the downhill that it’d been in previous years) and partially my lack of training.  Even though I finished much slower this year, I still ran faster than a 10 minute mile which is always my “If I don’t make my other goals, I at least want to make that one” goal.

The race was a point to point and there were shuttles back to the “party” area which is where the shirt pick up was.  We decided to walk instead, which was about a mile.  Unfortunately, when we got there, the lines for the medium (and small for that matter) t-shirts were really long and out of control, so I opted not to get one.  I have enough race shirts anyway.

Though I’m not particularly happy with my time, I’m not disappointed either.  At least not so much so that a little coffee and Bellini action can’t fix.