I hadn't planned on running this 5K, but the Fit Mother Ruckers team had a team member have something come up last minute and I said I'd fill in. The team captain was able to get the team members switched out, so I was able to run as myself.
It was in the upper 30s this morning when we headed to the race start area by the smaller of the two gyms here on post, but by the race start time it had warmed up to the low 40s. I was quite comfy in my long sleeve shirt and running tights and gloves, although the gloves came off about 1/2 mile from the finish. I knew that it was a hilly course, but since I've been training on hills, I wasn't concerned. The first mile was mostly downhill and was my fastest split. Then there was a big climb, turn onto another street and continue climbing, loop around post headquarters, and then back along the way we came so we got a little bit of a downhill before mostly uphill to the finish. I kept a pretty good pace on the uphills and used the down hills to catch my breath and cruise a little. I made the final turn onto the home stretch and gave it what I had left – which wasn't much. There was one lady that I tried to catch for the last about 1/2 mile, but I wasn't able to. She ended up being the female masters winner! My goal (despite not having trained for a 5K and not having planned on doing this one) was a sub-28 and I was able to attain that goal!! I ran a 27:30 which was a new PR (personal record) by 37 seconds!!!
Robert ran the 1 mile fun run in about 11:30 and then we hung out for the awards. The preliminary posting of the finish times had me at 4th in my age group. Again. Every time I get faster so does everyone else. Oh well. Imagine my surprise when they announced me as the 3rd place finisher in the female 35-39 age group!!! That was a great way to cap off the morning – and added another medal to my collection.
Here's a picture of Robert and I with our medals (all the 1 mile kid finishers got medals) after the race:
armytbonegirl 