Ok, so this is one of those, "Man I felt AWESOME, I felt like I was FLYING!...then why the hell does my time suck?". I was really hoping to PR in this, but I think there were a couple of factors.

Firstly, it was run at night. The darkness is sort of disorienting. Secondly, it was absolutely POURING rain and had been all day. It was slippery on the brick roads, especially because they were uneven. The path down into the park was also really slippery. There were unavoidable LAKES on the bikepath part of the race, which meant everyone had 5 lbs cinder blocks for shoes. Thirdly, the width of the streets and the avoidance of puddles made for a REALLY dense pack in the beginning. It was super hard to get around people and I wasn't accustomed to it. In retrospect, I should have started farther up front.

Anywho, enough whining!

Due to the tight pack, I was forced to take my first bit slow...and glad I did. My legs felt great as we headed down into the park and the pack spread out. I passed a couple of people here, but basically swam through my first big puddle trying to avoid the water guys.

The bike path was a bit interesting. The pack was still pretty tight, and we had to stay to the right because people were returning on the other side. Bad part? No lighting on the trail! All we had were the glowsticks they had given us to identify a runner. It was cool and all, but made for a challenge when passing/being passed. There was also standing water on the path.

Felt great at the turn around, felt like I was barely working. My stride felt AWESOME, no achilles tightness either. Picked up the pace a bit and kept picking people off as I went.

Then I started to feel the pizza. Some REALLY unpleasant burps coming up. Back through the park, back up the hill (boo!), back up Park St., then up college. I sprinted out 2 girls right at the finish (yes, I'm that guy).

- Not eat pizza (STUPID!)
- RUN FASTER!
- Invest in canoe.

I just wanted to get out of the rain! I turned in my chip, took a bottled water, and started to run back to my dorm (I called it a cool down). Got back to my dorm, used my therabands to stretch, then got a shower, got pretty and went to a party.

Pretty happy with my finish, even if I'm really unahppy with my time. I was 207/320 and 75/162 for the women. Top half of the gender, woo!

ETA: Age group finish: 23/41! Hell yea!


Rain, weight, running at night, stupid pizza.


Firstly... BEST SWAG EVER! For a $20 5k run, we got a long sleeve tech shirt, tons of protein bars, a blinker, tylenol samples, cupons, etc etc etc. Seriously, awesome. And there was an aid station. And people's costumes were so cool, even though I didn't dress up (i'm slow enough without a costume).