I did this race last year and placed 2nd female masters. They pay cash prizes for overall winners and I won $150. My time last year was 22:57. I struggled with my breathing in that race and was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma right after. So, I decided to go back this year and try to get 1st female masters.

I went to find a place at the start line about 10 minutes before the race start. I was starting to get cold again by the time the gun went off. I was worried about how this was going to affect my race start. When the gun went off, everyone around me just exploded past me. I felt like I wasn't even moving. I tried to remain calm and just run my race. It wasn't long before I started catching up to and passing all those rabbits.

I pushed the pace as hard as I could. 5K's are not my favorite distance. I don't like how much they hurt - my lungs were burning and I felt like puking for most of this run. Last year, I got water at one aid station and regretted it because it immediately made me feel nauseous. So, this time I decided to completely skip the aid stations. I didn't need water for a 3.1 mile race anyway (it was only 47 degrees).

I had set a goal of 7:00 miles for this race and made that goal (right at 6:58 pace). According to my Garmin, I was running 6:50 miles - so either the course was long or I was doing a lot of zig-zagging (probably the later). Overall, I was thrilled with my finish time (a PR of 1:19). Unfortunately, a couple of faster women decided to race today, so I finished 3rd female masters. But that was still good for $125!

When I got home from the race, I checked the mail and had received results from some bloodwork that I had done. I haven't been feeling great lately. I have been feeling a lot of fatigue and lightheadedness. I have been to the doctor several times trying to figure it out. According to the results, I have iron-defiency anemia (which is what I had suspected). But now I have to go back next year - maybe if I can run healthy, I can finally win the master's overall???

Nothing - I did the best I could on that day.

My warm-down was my walk back to my car to get my jacket and then back to the finish line to wait for the awards.


I would like to blame the anemia, but I have no way of knowing if I would have done any better if I wasn't anemic. So, I would say nothing.