River Run 5K

Let me preface this race report by saying the 5K is not really my race. I tend to get faster the longer the distance. There's not a huge difference in my paces between the 5K and the marathon. On top of all that, I have been sicksicksick this week with a terrible cold and as late as yesterday I was not sure I was even going to do this race. Nonetheless, I woke up feeling well enough to give it a try and knew it would be far from my best performance.

No, I'm too sick to run!!

And it was.

Perking up

This was a small race, about 400 people, so I started just a few rows back. I took off at a pace I thought would be okay and hit the one mile mark at 7:45. Yeesh!!! Where has my speed gone??? But I was hacking and coughing and snorting with each step. I was okay with how slow the pace was going. I hit the two mike mark at 8:07. Oh my stars!!! I am so far out of race shape it's not even funny. Finally I was in the last mile and I was just getting by. I finished the race in 25:02 (watch time) which is about 4 minutes slower than my PR.





Here's the cool parts of the race.

Because it was so small, I walked away with third in my age group, which I think nets me a gift certificate to the local running store. I'll be checking into that tomorrow. And they also had a contest with the race director of the Columbus Marathon, Darris Blackford, where he started as the very lasts person and whomever he passed would be entered into a drawing after the race for one of 20 free race entries. He passed all but 15 people and blew by me in the first mile. I haven't heard anything but fingers are crossed.