Race Report and Pictures

The best part of the 5k I ran on Saturday was the fact that I did it with my friends. Yes, it is wonderful to PR, but seeing 9 of my friends cross the finish line was even better. I tried hard to document some of my pre-race routines in pictures.

I did not run on Friday after much contemplation. I decided that I wanted super fresh legs and would forego the small run I had originally planned. Instead, I made medals for all of my friends running the race. I got the idea from Adam.

Once the medal-making was complete, I went through the bag that I recieved for packet-pickup.

Then, I went to bed. I need a lot of sleep and was tired from the week. Plus, I was setting my alarm for 5 a.m. Sleep is critical to running well!

I woke up the next morning feeling ready to run, although my blood sugar was 219. I dispise high blood sugars, but even more so on race days. They throw everything off. I took a correct bolus, had breakfast at 6 a.m., got dressed and got everything ready to go. I wore green shorts to celebrate the holiday.

Everything that went into the bag that I checked pre-race. So much stuff!

A little visual reminder of what I want to accomplish. This was taken shortly before I left to go to the race.

The great thing about this race was that they made pace signs so people would know where to line up before the race. I was near the front, as I lined up with at the 7:00/mile sign. It was wonderful not having to pass slowers runners. This allowed me to run faster.

The course was pretty flat with a few inclines, but it was windy. Wind can be brutal while running. However, I had a positive mindset and knew what I wanted to accomplish. My mile splits, according to my Garmin, were:

Mile 1: 6:44

Mile 2: 7:01

Mile 3: 6:55

0.1: 7:00 <--into the wind!

However, the race had chip timing (awesome!) and these were my official results:

Time: 21:13

Overall Place: 51/1,784

Gender Place: 5/1,106

Age Group Place: 1/170

Plus, I got some additional hardware to add to my running board:

It was a pretty good day, to say the least.

Have you ever run in a 5k where there was chip timing? This was my first and I think it was great. I ran 7 seconds faster than I thought because of it.