I realize I’m about a week late with this recap, life man! It never slows down!
When I started running in August and then made the crazy decision to run the Rock n Roll Strip At Night Half Marathon, I also wanted to schedule races for afterwards. I didn’t want to train for my half marathon and then feel like I could take a break. I figured having races after my 13.1 would ensure I’d keep running and keep training. I found a 5k race right by where I live. I knew my father and his new wife would be visiting so I wouldn’t have to worry about finding a babysitter. So I signed up for the Pilgrims Rock 5k on Thanksgiving weekend.
I later learned that there was also a Wobble Before You Gobble 5k on Thanksgiving Day and if you run that and the Pilgrims Rock race you’d get a bonus 3rd metal. I didn’t know if I could do both since I would be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my home, but I will FOR SURE being doing that next year!
The Pilgrims Rock 5k, 10k, and half marathon was put on by Desert Sky Adventures and was very well organized. The offered two packet pickup days since they were organizing both races you could pick up on Wednesday before Thanksgiving or Black Friday. We had scheduled some family pictures nearby the packet pickup on Friday so I opted for that one.
The race bag was decent. We got a fun albeit VERY bright race shirt, some Justin’s nut butter, and promotional materials. It was as expected for a very decent priced race. ($30 early bird or $45 day of for the 5k) I had every intention on buying a fun thanksgiving themed socks or shirt, but that didn’t happen so I was just going to race in the shirt.
#FlatEmily
When I woke up on race day it was quite a bit cooler than I had anticipated, so I ditched the race shirt and opted for a fleece lined top over my long sleeved shirt. And because I’m weird like that I decided I needed to match my socks to my top. (Don’t ask…)
My Dad arrived at 7am, and since the park isn’t too far from where I live I wasn’t worried about the 7:30 start time. I hate waiting around anyway! LOL. I got to the race, parked, and waited for about 10 minutes and then we took off!
The course is a pretty easy and mostly flat one. It’s in Floyd Lamb State Park or Tule Springs and I’ve been running there quite a bit lately. I knew it was going to be mostly trail/dirt so I wore my Mizuno Waverider 18s. Since it’s trail it’s dirty. These are the shoes I’ve been using when I run off road so they are already dirty plus they are the perfect less than 6 mile shoes for me. I’m a slight pronator – so anything longer than 6 miles in them hurts, but anything under and they feel great.
As with every run for me the first 1-2 miles is tight. I think I started off a bit too fast for me. I warmed up quickly and had to put my gloves in my pocket before I even finished the first mile. I had gotten the new iPhone6 (a huge upgrade from my 4s), and forgot to add any of my playlists. I realized this at 6:50am, so I tried to make some spotify lists available offline, but they kinda sucked. I also was running with my new iPhone6 armband for the first time, and while I liked it for the first 1.5 miles my wire was bugging the crud out of me! Finally I realized I could wear it behind me. Needless to say, I couldn’t find my groove – lesson learned nothing new on race day! I walked through the 2 mile water station, and when I got started again I seemed to really settle into a pace.
I have a feeling I’m not going to be much of a 5k runner… By the time I settle into my run which as I mentioned usually happens at mile 2, there is only a mile left and then I’m slightly bummed it’s over… (DID THAT JUST COME OUT OF MY MOUTH!! So much for being a non-runner huh!)
I’ve been working on strong finishes on my training runs, so as soon as I turned back into the park I really tried to pick up my pace. I ended up crossing with an official time of 41:47! I realize to many that is still pretty slow, but it was just over a 3 minute PR for me from my last 5k race. If I hadn’t stopped to fix my music and headphones a few times in the beginning I think it would have been much better, but honestly I was happy with my run.
Finish Strong – Finish Happy!
I went over to grab my medal and as I stood to look at it I realized that I (along with a lot of other people) were standing on the 1/2 marathon path. It was not marked or mentioned that the 1/2 people were going to be running through there and I felt so badly they had to run around a bunch of us. I stated loudly to myself “Oh! We are all on the path of the 1/2 marathon runners…” several people moved off, but before I left you could see people had gathered there again. I didn’t get to talk to any 1/2 marathoners to see if this was an issue for them or not so who knows.
My awesome neighbors ran the 10k together and they said they loved that course that it went out further than the 5kers into the desert. Maybe next year I will do the Wobble Before You Gobble 5k on Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims Rock 10k! No matter what it was a nice run and I enjoyed the Pilgrims Rock 5k very much.
I was pretty happy to see that I finished in the middle of the pack all the way around. Getting faster and getting stronger! Not too shabby for only have been running for 4 months!
My next race is the Rockin Reindeer 10k! Looking forward to running another 10k if for nothing more than making the last 10k that I got so sick afterwards nothing but a memory!
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Wow. A 3 minute PR is HUGE! Great job.
Awesome! Would love to run a marathon one day! A lot of my family runs crazy long marathons and I love running, just need to build up endurance after letting myself get out of shape from having 4 kids! Def. In my 5yr plan to train and run at least a 5k!
one day I hope to be a running winner like you!