Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Run for the Rainbow 5K 2016

I went to work on Friday morning and my coworker said, "you running the race tonight?"  Why, yes.  I am.  Game on, Eric.  Game on!

I showed up to the race plenty early.  Dave and Anderson were able to enjoy all the festivities - the race benefited Nationwide Children's Hospital so there was a small petting zoo, free food and goodies, face painting, balloons, etc.  Heaven for a three year old.  I checked in, went to the bathroom one thousand times, and warmed up.  It was a hot one, but the warm up went great and I thought I would be having a good race.  Just a few minutes before the start of the race I went off to a side street to do a few more pickups and then I looked over and the race had started. 

WTF?!?  It was still six minutes until the start of the race!

Who starts a race early?!?

So I took off like a bat out of hell to try to get around everyone and hit the first mile mark in a 6:49.  Now, I should be able to hold that pace but immediately I felt like the monkey jumped on my back.  I felt terrible.  My heart was jumping out of my throat and my legs would not go.  I slowed down and just tried to hold on.  And then I did something unbelievable in a 5K - I walked a water stop.  Yep.  I took in the water, got my stuff back together, and took off again.  Unfortunately, my legs still wouldn't go and I did all I could to get to the finish line.

My finish time was 22:12.  Not bad, but certainly not what I was thinking I would do.  I finished fourth female and first in my age group.  And my friend Eric?  Just 20 seconds back.  Woah. 

And I enjoyed the festivities too.  I got some ice cream and then watched my son man-handle some baby chicks.

 Eric, myself, and his sister.

Official race pictures are supposed to be posted soon.  Hopefully there'll be at least one where I don't look like how I was feeling - death.

2 comments:

Carina said...

What the heck??? That would have made me royally peeved.

Anonymous said...

I had a few friends that got messed up because of the early start. Very odd.