Freight Train 5K recap

Hi guys!

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.  Mine was a great one. :-)

Saturday night I made pasta for dinner to get a few carbs in my body before the race.  It was pretty tasty if I do say so myself.  After dinner I headed upstairs to lay out my race outfit so all I have to do is throw it on in the morning 

4:50 a.m. came EARLY.  I grabbed a quick shower, got dressed, and headed out to pick up Sharon.  We were CRAVING a bagel from our favorite place, BB's Bagels but, of course, they don't open until 7 on the weekends.  Oh well!  We headed to the race and got there about an hour before the race was set to start.  We have plenty of time to pick up our packets and get some stretching in.  While stretch at our car I heard a familiar voice - I look behind me and there is a dear friend that I haven't seen in years, Dr. Bo.  I was very active in 4-H growing up, and he was Georgia's State 4-H Leader the entire time I was involved.  He is an avid runner now and it was so incredibly good to see him.  He had run 4 or 5 races over the week, and even with tired legs he did an amazing job!

Dr. Bo and I

Sharon and I found her dad, who ran the race with her, and we all headed to the start line.  There wasn't a HUGE crowd of runners, but we chose to start near the back where it was less crowded, especially since our chip time wouldn't start until we crossed the start line.  

We're PITs - Princesses in Training!

Runners getting ready

Ready to get my run on

We hear the gun, and off we go!  Since we were at the back, we chose to walk to the start and start running once we crossed the timing pad.  I ran off and left Sharon and her dad to run and bond :)  I had my music blaring and my interval timer going.  Myself, along with a couple of friends, were having issues with the MapMyRun app, so I bit the bullet and bought the Nike+GPS app to try out (more about that later).

It was a nice, cool moring, the course was fairly flat, and quite a bit of it was in the shade.  I really worked on pacing myself better this race than I did during my first one.  I ran the first mile in 10:53, so not too bad.  They had a photographer at the first mile taking pics (please excuse the water marks - I'm too cheap to spend $12 on a .JPEG file!!) -

Watch me go!

They had one water station set up at the 1.5 mile mark - I grabbed a couple, chugged them down and kept going.  I met David and Sharon and cheered them on.  My second mile split was 11:30.  I had to do a tad more walking between the second and third mile than I would have liked, but I don't want to risk hurting myself.  As I approached the third mile, I decided as soon as I got into the parking lot I was going to dig deep and push myself to the finish line.  I think I pushed a little too soon because as I got near it I felt like I might throw up!!  I passed a few people and was smiling big when I approached the finish line -

Thumbs up!

I crossed the finish line and headed over to grab some water and waited for Sharon and her dad to cross.  Part of the course ran on the road right outside the parking lot that the start/finish line was at, so I ran out to watch them come up.  I snapped a picture and encouraged them that they were almost done!

You're almost there!!

I ran back over to the finish line to wait for them so I could capture them finishing their first 5K they've run together

Yay!!

We walked over to all the sponsor tents and got some free stuff - coconut water, GU, other interesting supplements from the Vitamin Shoppe, a free Nuun bottle that I was planning on buying anyway and, to top it off - a free shot of Sinless Margarita -

I WILL be buying some of this

We walked over and grabbed bananas (blueberry muffin for me as I don't like bananas) and saw the race photographer.  It was the same guy that took our pictures at the Boulder Dash, so we HAD to get another jumping picture!

Traditional photo? I think so...

We then headed to the car and made our way home.  J was going to come with me to the race but he was still adjusting from being on the west coast and was dead tired.  Got home, showered and we headed to Flavors of Forsyth for lunch.  The selection of restaurants was a little disappointing but at least we helped out the United Way.

Later in the day I checked active.com and got my results.  My chip time was 35:30....PR!!!  I beat my previous race time by over 3 minutes!!  I was absolutely ecstatic with myself.  I was 20/34 in my age group and 117/204 in the women's, but I'm not so focused on winning my age division.  I'm in a personal competition with myself, and that's all that matters to me.

J is on his way to Montana for the week as I write this, so it's just the pup and I again.  Today is my off day and tomorrow I plan to hit the pavement again.  My next 5K is in a month, so I have some time to work on my speed and endurance.  I am also planning to add weights in to my training 2-3 times a week.

Congrats to all the ladies that completed race this past weekend!!

Until next time -

Jen