Radio U 5K

In my quest to do 12 races this year, I have some serious making up to do since I missed basically the first six months of this year being super pregnant.  So I found some short, cheaper, races to do all right together.  This week I did the RadioU 5K held at a local metropark.  The course description said a mixture of paved path, crushed limestone, and grass.  Now, I've been going to this park since I was a kid and I have NEVER seen anything except the loop paved path, so I had no idea where I'd be racing.  We showed up to this race a little later than we should have (welcome to our new life with a baby) which created some rushing for a bathroom stop and picking up my packet.  Of course by the time I picked up my packet they were out of my shirt size so I did not get a shirt.  If they could only refund $10 to make up for that!  After all of that, there was only about 5 minutes left until the start of the race.

Looking around, um, there didn't appear to be that much competition.  This was a fundraiser for the local Christian radio station and most people appeared to be doing the race not for competition but rather to support the cause.  I'm cool with that.  Anyway, when the race director called for participants to line up, I moved my way pretty close to the start.  The race started and I was off pretty quickly.  The race started on a paved path but quickly turned into trail.  And no, it was not crushed limestone.  It was all-out trail with roots, big rocks, and lots of ups and downs and twists to it.  Plus it was not very wide.  I'm not gonna lie, I never ran cross country in high school and my trail running skills are not exactly up to par, so although I can push myself up an uphill, I am scared shitless to fly down them.  I was getting passed by big dudes flying down the hills and it was scaring me to death.  I really had to hold back so I didn't fall.  Around the one mile mark we were into a grassy area that continued until the turn around.  I started counting...I was the seventh female and then quickly got passed by a perky young thing.  Teenagers!  So I was in eighth.  And that's where I would stay until the finish.

The race had no medals and no age group awards so soon after I finished we left to go home.  Results were posted today.  My official time was 25:27 (8:11 pace) which I don't think is bad for the terrain.  I actually was the 9th overall female as someone got me on chip time.  (Seriously, why do you need to chip time a 5K with less than 300 people?)  I have one more 5K planned, this time running with the stroller, and then I'll get into the real meat of my scheduling including a lot of trail races.  I'm looking forward to it!