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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Beerun 5 Mile

My first 8K race is done! I'm so glad that race is over and done! I was so nervous about it all week. I don't know why I was stressing so much over this race. Maybe because it was my first 8K race and it's a pretty big race with lots of great runners. It's also a VERY difficult course! And to add to that this year they changed the course a bit so the distance was actually 5.2 miles! Give me a break!

It was a beautiful day sunny and around 80 degrees. There was a chance of rain but thankfully it held off for the race. This was another reason I was worried. I do not like to run in the rain and I usually avoid it if possible. Since the race was on St. Patrick's Day most people were wearing green and some people had more costume stuff on like beads and hats. I bought a new shirt on Friday night after realizing the shirt I bought a couple of weeks ago was too big. Note to self: if it's a unisex shirt I wear a small. I also had to exchange my Beerun shirt because I registered for a medium and it was too big. Luckily, that was not a problem to exchange it before the race. The Beerun shirts are long sleeve and always look awesome!  I would have been very disappointed if I couldn't wear it. My shirt for the race said "I'm not short, I'm Leprechaun sized"!

Anyways, I had a couple of goals in mind for this race. My first was to have a 10 minute mile pace and come in around 50 minutes. Well once I realized this was actually 5.2 miles I knew that wasn't going to happen. On Wednesday night I did a "test run" on a course with a few hills. I finished in 52 minutes. So I thought that could be my goal for the Beerun. My second goal would be under 55 minutes. Then on Friday I read something that helped me stop stressing about the race. On our running group email, one of the girls did a half marathon last weekend. She said she didn't have as much fun as she did in her last half because she was so worried about her pace. Lesson learned (per Liz): "if you worry about your pace you won't have fun; if you don't sweat the pace, you'll have fun and may even surprise yourself with a good finish." That was just what I needed to hear. Of course I still had a finishing time in mind but I didn't need to worry about my pace so much. What I needed to do was make sure I had fun!

So I did have fun and finished pretty good. My official chip time was 54:12. That was an 10:31 average pace. Again, it was a difficult course. Even the elite fast runners said the course was challenging. Michael did awesome even with a slight injury. He finished 33 overall with 758 finishers! That was around a 7 minute average pace when he is usually around 6 1/2 minute pace. Those hills were no joke! It seemed like around every corner there was another hill. And some of them didn't even follow with a downhill! What kind of crap is that?!? I mean I appreciate a flat road but give me a downhill too! But after the race we all got our 2 free beers and just chilled out - that was well deserved!

Front of shirt

Back of shirt

Pre race with Michael

Pre race with bro-in-law Doug

YAY! Finish line!

Next race on the list is actually for this Saturday. I haven't registered yet because I wanted to make sure I would be able to do it. It's another 3pm race with free beer at the end :) And it's a 5K - yes 3.12 miles! I wanted to do this race because it's a new race series called Race the Bar. There are only 4 races so I thought I would be able to do them all and finish a series.

Also, I found a different 10K for April. It's in Wilmington on Easter weekend. We are going to the beach!! I'm excited to be able to get away for a long weekend and I love the beach! Only 3 more weeks of 10K training to go!

1 comment:

  1. Great job on the Old Towne Beer Run, and glad I saw you for a bit at today's race as well!

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