Well today was the day. This morning I hauled my butt out of bed at 5:30 am in order to get to the race and be on the shuttle at 7am. The weather was...interesting. It was overcast and about 80 degrees at the start. It sprinkled for the last quarter mile or so, which felt amazingly nice - I kept hoping it would turn into an actual rain, but the sprinkle was nice anyway.
The hardest part of the whole thing was trying to find my "race pace". In case you're unfamiliar, your race pace is typically faster than your training pace. I wanted to feel like I really gave it my all, but I didn't want to die half-way through the race either. I know where my training pace is, so it was a little tricky to find a pace that's faster than that, but not so fast that I would burn out before the finish.
Another thing, if at all possible, I recommend running the race course beforehand. We went and drove it (also a good idea), so we knew where the route went, but since we hadn't actually run it, we didn't realize that nearly all of the last 3/4 mile was UPHILL!! That was a decent kick in the ass...
All in all though, it went very well. I finished, I ran the whole thing, and I beat my best training time. Also, I picked a race that has finisher medals for the 5k, so I got to come home with a nice new medal to show for it!
Congratulations! That's fantastic!
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