This past weekend my parents came up from Florida to celebrate my birthday. We had a great weekend full of shopping, eating, visiting and running (of course!).
On Friday my mom and I went shopping most of the day with Sophia in tow. She was a pretty good sport since she's not quite old enough to enjoy shopping the way we do. I scored some great stuff at Old Navy, including this dress that I'm completely in love with already! The website says "teal stripe" but it's green like my Converse green. As in, looks great with my (fake) red hair. Score! After dinner we had a little birthday party and some cake.
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Since we always run a race when we're together, my dad and I got up early to run a 5K at a local elementary school. If you've been following my race recaps these past few months you'll know that I've been trying hard to PR ever since I ran a 25:57 back in early November. Since then I've missed it by about 40 seconds every race. This race on Saturday I knew was going to be flat as a pancake and straight as an arrow, so I had my hopes up quite a bit. It was also a pretty small race, under a 100 runners/walkers, so no crowding issues at the start. Normally I'm quite OCD about the way I run, but before the race I told my dad I was just going to forget over thinking everything and just run as fast as I could. Which is exactly what I did! I've always been too afraid to run a race full-out because I have a fear of running out of energy midway through and having to *gasp* walk!
So off we go, and I'm hauling booty, basically. My first mile is 7:54. Holy crap!!! Around one mile another woman came up alongside of me and started to pace with me. Now, normally this is not my thing. I'm way too competitive to run with someone else. But, she seemed to be wanting to pace off of me, not pass me, so I just stayed at my pace. After a minute or two, she started to make small talk with me. Again, I was like "what?!" because I always run with headphones and music cranked. Still, not wanting to be rude, I popped out one headphone and talked a little too. It was actually pretty fun to have a running buddy! We were both excited to be running as fast as we were, since she was a distance runner who was trying to up her speed. I told her I was the opposite, a speed runner who's trying to graduate up to distance. My second mile was a 7:59 and I was still feeling pretty good.
Around the third mile I was beginning to wonder how long I could keep it up, but I knew the route pretty well and knew it was almost over, so I managed to carry on. My third mile was 8:03.
I crossed the finish line at 23:46, so basically I Hulk-smashed my PR! The course was short by about a tenth of mile, so adjusted time should be something like 24:30. Which still would have been a PR by a minute and a half!
Race stats:
Official time: 23:46 (average pace: 7:55)
Age group: 2nd out of ? (They did ten year age groups, so I was in the 20-29)
Overall: Not sure, but I know I was the 4th female finisher.
He beat me, of course.
So, that might be my last 5K for a while! I've signed up for a 10K in three weeks and I'm really excited!
