Say No To Snow 5K

So the first bad thing I did before this race was to stay up until the early hours of the morning talking with friends. I think I got about a total of 4 hours of sleep because I couldn't sleep in due to family responsibilities. But it was all worth it.

The second bad thing was something I couldn't control....cold and that WIND! Geez! I could hear the gusts upon awakening and seriously considered not running this race. But the director had sent me a personal invitation to this race because I fail to hear about it every year. So I thought I'd better show up. Besides everybody else was going to have to suffer the windiness too.

So I picked my daughter up from her slumber party with limited sleep and took her to my mom's which was on the way to this race. I arrived at the registration table about 10 a.m. The race didn't start until 11 so I thought I chat a while with some people I knew from past races that I hadn't seen in a while. One of them being this 46 yr. old that I know that ended up winning the race with a time of 18:41. The whole race he was only ahead of the 2nd place finisher by about 2 ft. Very close!!

I decided to cut my warmup short due to the cold so I didn't head out until 15 minutes before race time. There weren't any chips being used due to the small race stature(100).

The course was very flat. The first mile felt good, felt like I was in a breathing groove. I heard them yell out 7:15. Right before the turnaround, there were a couple of little hills. I wouldn't really call them hills, but I think some people must have felt them because I passed quite a few on them. I don't know what my other splits were because they didn't have any.

At one point about mile 2 I had just passed some man and I could hear him behind me. Then all of a sudden I could hear him behind me picking up the pace but not passing me. I'll be damned if anybody is going to draft off me, so I started moving towards the left of the road(the wind was at the face and side). I did this for a while until he passed me and much to my embarrassment, it wasn't the same guy. He had to think I was a drunk runner. lol

After I finished the race and grabbed my numbered popsicle stick that marks my placement, I went back to the registration table to give it to them to chart and went to a friend's house for a quick shower before the party in one hour. So I had no idea what my placement was at all.

I was pleasantly surprised at the finishing party where I got 1st place in my age group. Woo hoo! I heard later it pissed the second place finisher off who wins her age group every year(her hometown). I don't think she likes me showing up at the races anymore. :-) I see her quite frequently.

I found out later that my age group had the most participants in them (12). What is it with women my age running so much?

To my embarrassment, they had official podiums just like the Olympics and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners had their pictures taken on them.

Today, my mom told me to look at the paper and there was an article about the race. It seems I was also 3rd overall women's. First place women was 20:12 and second place was 20:54. I wasn't even close to that.

Official time: 23:15
17/100 overall
3/56 women
1/12 age group

Not bad for a race with lack of sleep I guess!

I like the 1st place medal, but I'm still waiting for money! lol