Big time PR! Rocked this one! Mendon Hornet Hustle 5K!

I am so psyched! Awesome, awesome race. Best race I've ever run (so far). Anyhoooo, I had been having a tiny bit of anxiety over this race. Coach sent me some tips for running it. One of which was warm up by running the course slow. Warm up?!?!?! You mean real runners are supposed to do this right? I have never, ever really warmed up for a race. I admit it. I'm one of the typical 5K runners that just show up at the starting line with a smile and cross their fingers and hope for the best. This time however was different. I really, really wanted to do better. I have been very determined this whole training cycle to be putting my all into it. Doing the stuff I don't want to do including stretching and warming up, but still as of yet I've never warmed up for a 5K and was very nervous about being the sole runner running the entire route prerace. What if people stared at me? Then I thought about it? So what? I mean I've got 7 freaking kids. Have I ever cared about people staring at me before??? Uh, no.

So to the race I go. Start off by almost heading out the door with my running skirt on inside out. Smooth. Realized I was tired when I put it on when I couldn't find my pocket. Fixed that. Try again. Leave without my Garmin and HRM. Turn around and go get it. Could have ran without it, but didn't want to. Finally get to race. And while I am running the warm up the whole time I'm thinking this is so easy. What was my hang up about this. Nobody is staring at me and it was good for my confidence as well. Since I had to go back to get my Garmin I didn't get there early enough to run the entire course prerun, but I ran 2 miles of it. I was running really slow too and I look at my watch and it says 11 minutes for the first mile. (For some of you that probably means nothing, but 11 minutes isn't really all that slow or easy for me so I got a good feeling about this race when 11 minutes felt super easy.)

Get to starting line. Line up in the front. I've never lined up in the front - ever. I always line up in the back, but this time I wanted to be fast and not slow so did it anyways. Forgot to mention, my cousin drove me to the race. He's older than me and fast to me. He usually runs anywhere from 20ish to at his slowest 24ish 5Ks. My PR for the 5K distance was 28:28. So when the gun goes off my goal was to be able to keep an eye on him. Not to keep up with him, but at least to be able to see the back of his head and his shirt.

As we are running the first 1/4 of mile I was kind of disoriented as to how fast I was going. It didn't feel that fast, but I never start in the front with the fast runners so I wasn't sure. I look at my garmin and see 8 something. WOW! My goal pace was 9-9:10 min/mi. I see my cousin and we are running pretty close to each other. I decide if I am running at his pace I better back off a bit because I knew his pace and I knew that I still had a ways to go and I knew I needed to be able to keep this pace longer than a 1/2 mile. Backed off a little, but still was psyched about how fast I was running. Finished first mile in 8:25! (This may not be a big deal to some, but was HUGE to me. I don't think I've ever ran a full mile in under 9 minutes.)

Second mile I remember the whole time just thinking stay strong. Keep going and being completely amazed that my body was still moving this fast. I was tired, but not I'm going to throw up tired and was pretty confident I could keep my pace for the rest of the race. Finished second mile - time 8:52.

Get to third mile. The whole time I did not have my garmin set to show anything except my pace, my lap pace, and my distance. I didn't want to see my exact time, HR, or anything else. I didn't want to be distracted. I just was trying to focus on keeping my pace around 9 min/mi or better. About 3/4 mile from the finish I see my cousin's shirt. I realize holy cow. I must be doing pretty good if I can see him! He was still way faster than me, but still I could see him. Usually he finishes so far ahead of me he's nowhere to be seen or found. So that helped keep me going. I just kept focusing on being able to see his darn shirt.

1/2 mile from the finish I made an attempt at passing a couple runners. Didn't work so well. I did pass one gal, but then felt like I was going to puke, lol. My bad. Oh well, she wound up passing me at the end, but not by but a few seconds. To be honest at that point I didn't really care because I KNEW I was going to PR this and big time. I was so excited with that if she or a couple runners I couldn't pick off. Oh well. When I turned the corner to the finish I could see the clock. I couldn't believe it. I still had my garmin set to pace so honestly wasn't sure what that equated to in time. The clock said 26:20 something. That was enough to get me really booking it. I just kept turning over my legs and moving. No way in hell I was going to finish in over 27 minutes now. Crossed the line in 26:50. (I read it as 26:47, but it wasn't a chipped race and I'm not going to whine over 3 seconds.) Mile 3 - 8:53, and the last .1 pace was 7:39!

The only sucky thing was I finally run fast enough to win an age group award and those suckers have the age grouping in 10 year groups! Boo! I came in 4th for the 30-39 year old age group. The fastest gal was 30. I was withing 15 seconds of the other 2. Overall though, I am so excited! This was a 1:38 second PR!