My Return to Racing!

Last night I had a pre-race/welcome to Charlotte dinner (for Anne) organized by Caitlin.  I met Anne last month at the Healthy Living Summit and was excited to see her again!  We were also joined by Diana who arrived post Zumba, in true Diana style ;)

We met at Big Daddy's to give Anne the Charlotte burger experience.

I opted for the Cantina 1511 Burger, which is Big Daddy's black bean burger, and never disappoints :)

Also a massive bowl of sweet potato fries on the side.

Greg got some kind of fried portabella burger.

With tater tots as his side (he's a kid at heart you know!)

It was pretty much a given that we'd be getting fro-yo after dinner.  It's WHAT bloggers do.  Off to Yoforia we went.

Greg and I split a medley of berry flavors.  I put in pomegranite, blueberry, pineapple, and taro yogurt.  Then topped it with fresh pinapple, raspberries, strawberries, and some coconut.  Very yummy.

(I stole this photo from Anne, because mine didn't come out...thanks Anne!)

On the end is Caitlin's BFF Sarah, who is visiting from VA for the weekend. 

Then I rushed home to bed to get some rest for my 5K in the morning. 

I was up without my alarm around 5:30am.  I guess my body knows from weekdays that this the time I get up most mornings!  I got ready and had a sandwich thin with PB and banana and some water and coffee.  Then Greg, Clyde, and I headed to Freedom Park for the race.

Once there I met up with Michelle!

She ran at my half marathon with me back in June and the two of us have been plagued with injuries (her hip, my knee) ever since, we we haven't had many chances to run together in a while.  She is training for the Richmond Marathon right now.  So cool!

We also met up with our crew from last night's dinner.  Caitlin's friend Sarah and her husband came to spectate and brought their dog, who Clyde quickly befriended.

Too cute!

A little background on my 5K experience.  I actually haven't run many 5K races.  In high school I had a 4.3 mile race that I ran every year, called the Bemis-Forslund Pie Race.  It is a part road, part trail race through our beautiful campus in western Mass.  The trophies of the race are freshly baked apple pies, and in order to score a pie, men have to finish in 32 minutes and women in 38 minutes.  I always won a pie.  The Olympic runner Frank Shorter went to my high school, and here's a blog post about his experience running my high school's race.

So that race was a little more than a 5K.  The only other 5K I guess I've run was last fall's Thin Blue Line 5K, in which my time was 30:29.  The race was part trail, part paved, and was kind of hilly.  I figured there was no way I wouldn't beat that time today unless something crazy happened.

After prepping and stretching for awhile, it was race time and we headed to the starting line.

After an intro by a Vietnam Vet and the presentation of colors, we were off!

This was after the first lap around the lake, still in the first mile.  I smiled when I saw Greg and Clyde :)

My Garmin hasn't come yet, so I had no way to track my pace, but I kept it on the faster side of steady.  I'm still paranoid about my knee and didn't want to go too crazy, but at the same time I wanted to finish with time I was happy with.  At the two mile marker, I believe the clock said it was around 18 minutes. 

As I finished the race, the clock was around 27 minutes and some amount of seconds.  But I also started towards the middle of the racing pack, so I'm not sure what my chip time will end up being. 

Anyway, I PR'd so that was cool!! 

Unfortunately, upon finding Anne and Caitlin at the finish line, I heard that there were some issues with lack of course markings for the front runners.  Caitlin and Anne had followed the group over a bridge instead of heading straight on the course, which basically ruined their race times.  If you follow Caitlin's blog, you know that she's been working for months to PR on her 5K time and this was supposed to be the big day.  They were both pretty upset :(

Caitlin kept saying you learn something new with every race though, and I think she handled it well despite being dissappointed.