I hadn't done an official 5K for a couple years, since I was mainly doing triathlons and I also have a 9 month old baby that takes a lot of my time away. (In a good way :))

I had done several 5K's prior to this one, but I had never seriously trained for any. I put in some speedwork into almost every one of my workouts (except my long-runs). I use a Garmin GPS watch for my runs and I finally got around to using the "virtual partner" function on the watch. I started by putting in a goal of 8:50 min/miles and I would literally decrease my time by a second every time I did a run. I am currently in the 8:20 range, but this is not my race speed. It is just a speed that I find comfortable enough to do a workout in for a distance of 3.5 miles up to 6 miles. I can't believe how well this is working!

Anyhow, I just too a lot of advice that I had read in running magazines and tried to take this race semi-seriously. I put a goal of "7:30 min/miles" in my Garmin GPS watch and was a little nervous as to whether or not I could maintain that pace during the race. However, I was VERY surprised to look down at my watch about a mile into the race to see that I was approx. 500 ft. ahead of my "virtual" partner that was running a 7:30 min/mile pace. YES!!! I couldn't believe how good I felt and it really didn't feel like I was running that fast (which is fast for me) during the race.

Anyhow, there was only one big hill to deal with during the run, but my daily run involves lots of hills, so I think that made it easier for me. I took some advice on hills which was, "try not to keep your same speed going up hills, just try to keep your same exertion level." Basically, don't over exert yourself; which I followed pretty well.

This fun was run by my school district in which I am a teacher in, so there were a lot of my students there. I ended up getting into a run war with one of them. We passed each other several times during the run with him taking the overall lead at the end. It was a lot of fun and I think that helped my time as well.

I was pretty pumped with this race because I achieved two things; most importantly, I made a PB with my time and secondly I placed in my age group, which is what I have never done. It was sooo nice to take home a medal. I never wins things so it felt nice to have placed.

Nothing, I was quite pleased with the run!

Light stretching.


I think I could drop a few more pounds which would really help me out. I am not heavy, but I am not one of those lean, stick-figure runners and it would be nice to have less weight to move around.


The race was well organized. I loved the shirt design; which I think is always a plus with races. I hate it when they give out technical t's that are made of that dry-fit material. yuck!

One criticism would be when they did the awards. They waited over 2 1/2 hours after the race to hand out age group medals. There was nobody there, but if I hadn't gone home to check my time and my status, I wouldn't have known that I had placed in my AG. So, I got back in my car and was able to make the award ceremony. I hope they will learn they should do the awards closer to the race, because I think there was only about 5 people there (including myself) to accept their awards.