I Run For Pizza 5K Race Photos - 08/13/2011

These are some pretty horrible pictures, but I must remain consistent with my previous 5K race report and post the official photos.

I Run For Pizza 5K Race Report - 08/13/2011

Run for pizza?  Me?  Well, if anything will get me to run, it's pizza.  And maybe ice cream.  Hey, Running Zone, can we have that arranged for the next race in the series?  Mmm ice cream.

Anyway, this morning, I got up bright and early (like 4:50am) to prepare for this 5K.  I know I need an hour in the morning to eat something and then let the food settle/pass through, whatever.  Apparently, the recommended pre-race meal of toast with peanut butter does not work out for me.  I won't go into details but lets just say when I got to the starting line, my stomach was still ...not happy.  We'll leave it at that.


So that combined with hot, muggy weather made for a horrible pre-race feeling.  I didn't even want to race, I wasn't feeling well, I haven't been training well, and I just didn't want to do it.  But of course, since I was already there, I did it anyway.  I just didn't expect to have a great time... I just wanted to finish.  So I could get pizza.


So now some photos:

The starting/finish line.

Shannon and me waiting for the start.
You can see in my eyes that I was not feeling up to this. lol

The section we start in.  It says "healthy WALKERS", but people in this section always jog after crossing the start line and then I feel slow because I'm walking and I feel pressured to go faster.  But I don't want to start at the end of the pack.  Dilemma.

Okay, so the actual race.... my plan was 5 minutes warm up walk, 1 minute hard running, 1:30 of walking as fast as I felt like to recover from the hard running, then 1 minute hard running, 1:30 recovery, etc.... I was going to attempt doing that through the whole 5K.

I started off with the 5 minute warm up walk, instead of starting out slow jogging like I did for the last race - lesson learned, don't start off too fast.  After about 4 minutes of warm up, I started to pick up my pace into a very slow jog because I knew the hard running was coming soon.  I did pretty well with the hard running/recovery intervals for the most part.  I'd say out of like 18 intervals (37 total), I walked through the running part on maybe 5 of them.  I just needed more time to recover and didn't want to push too hard.  Based on my RunKeeper activity log, my fastest running interval was 10:33!  WHAT!!  I had no idea I could even move that fast.  Of course, that might have been for one of the intervals I had to cut short because I ran out of breath.  The walking interval following that was 25:48 pace. lol  That same log shows my slowest interval was a walking pace of 28:21 after a 10:40 running pace, so yeah, kinda balances that out.  I run faster, but then I need to walk much slower to recover.  I must find a happy medium here!

Anyway, I survived and I finished!  My official posted time was 50:07, which is a whopping two seconds faster than my previous 5K time.  Amazing, but hey, it's a new PR!  Next one, I WILL be sub-50 dangit!

So then it was pizza time!

The line was really long. :(

Shannon had to leave, so I waited over by the stage area for the little bit until the pizza/food area became a little less congested.


Then it was time.

Oranges are 100% definitely my new favorite post race snack.  
I ate so many. lol

They also had danishes and bananas.
Much better food selection than my last 5K too!

I didn't take a picture of the pizza section because I was too anxious to get it on my plate ASAP.

My post race plates of deliciousness!

My reason for completing this race.

So after chowing down on all of that satisfying food, it was time for the awards ceremony.  This is the WORST part for me.  I will never ever win.  It's always the same people that in.  And there are like 5378957829 age categories (for male and female of course, so DOUBLE that) and it takes FOR-EV-ER.  But the grand prize giveaway (today's was two football game tickets for any Florida football team with a night's hotel stay) is always given after the awards, so I am forced to sit there and be hot, sweaty, and miserable.  

People waiting for the grand prize giveaway.  I'm sure the majority are only waiting for that and don't really care that the top male finisher completed the 5K in 14 minutes. 

I didn't win the grand prize, or any of the lesser grand prizes, so I picked up one of these for my drive home.

Well deserved, in my opinion.

Firecracker 5K Race Report - 07/04/2011

So my first race report.  Not really sure what to put here so I guess I'll just ramble as usual. :)


Today's 5K began at the Liberty Bell Museum in Melbourne, FL.


I met Shannon (an old high school friend) at 6:15am and we carpooled over to the event.  The 5K was to begin at 7:15, so when we got there we had a few minutes to wander around, pick up her packet, use the facilities, etc, before the race began.

Speaking of facilities, this was the line for the port-o-potties.  Not awesome.

So after that, we headed over to the start line. I tried to take a picture of us....

and then a nice lady nearby offered to take one for us....

Some guy sang the Star Spangled Banner into a megaphone, the Liberty Bell was rung, and the race begin.  We were in the "Healthy Walkers Pace" section so I assumed Shannon would start off walking with me, but nope, she took off!  I then made a rookie mistake and also started jogging after barely having crossed the start line!  I reached the 1-Mile marker at 15:14 so I was excited to be ahead of my usual 17-18 minute pace.  


Unfortunately, Mile 2 was brutal! I had used up way too much energy during the first mile.  Somehow I managed to push myself, even full on RUN for 10 second spurts at a time.  I reached the next mile marker at 31:45... not too bad!  


Mile 3 was my worst mile.  I was exhausted, my legs hurt, I couldn't fully catch my breath, and I walked most of it.   There was another bigger girl that I was kind of on an even pace with most of the time.. she was power walking the whole time with a friend, so I'd jog to get a little ahead of them, and when they caught up to me, I'd jog again.  But on Mile 3, I had nothing left in me.  They passed me and I just couldn't push anymore.  So that was discouraging but I got over it, I was doing the best I could. :)


I had it set in my head that I wanted to be "running" when I crossed the finish line, so when I rounded the last turn and the Finish line was in sight, I upped my speed.  As I got closer and people were cheering and clapping (including Shannon!), I picked up my speed even more and used every last bit of energy I had left.  I saw 50 minutes and some seconds on the time clock, but I didn't have enough energy to even be happy or care at all about that time. lol


When I finished, all I could say was "waterrrr.... I need waterrrr!"  They had ONE water stop during the whole course, a little after Mile 1 marker.  If they had 1 more stop after the Mile 2 marker, or even some Gatorade, I think I would've had a little more oomph left.  I was having a hard time breathing, but I got some water and Gatorade and sat down for a few minutes.

We are exhausted but happy it's over!

Then we went to see what the food options were.... there really WASN'T any options which kind of sucked.  All they had was this banana nut bread - I'm not a fan of nuts, but I needed something in my stomach so I ate it.  BUT they had the most delicious and refreshing orange slices!  I never really knew how delicious they could be until I was worn out and needed something cold and juicy.  Shannon and I ate a ton of orange slices.  Definitely the highlight.  

The nut bread.  We ate the orange slices before I could take a pic. lol

So after eating and relaxing for a few minutes, we checked the official times that were posted.  My time (and new personal record and time to beat) was 50 minutes and 9 seconds!  During my C25K training, the fastest I have been able to finish 3.1 miles was always between 57-58 minutes, so this was definitely a record for me!  


So now, I have a simple goal at the next 5K - finish in less than 50 minutes.  I learned what I did well and what I did not so well, so I'm already looking forward to the next race.  Yay!