The day dawned bright and sunny and yet chilly (yeah ....you know how I just loove that.....) I hadn't slept much the night before .... a few winks really .... so I was extremely sleep deprived. I hadn't signed up for the race yet either so technically I could have just gone stayed in bed and done my own run later today. But I was really wanting to feel the adrenaline of getting to the start line and getting ready with all the other runners. I didn't even know about this race until Tim told me about it last week and I had been thinking about going to Santa Cruz so by Friday afternoon I still hadn't made up my mind. By late evening however, I had decided to run the race..... so I had to get there a little earlier to do the whole sign up thing. I was in Lodi early so I grabbed a drink at Starbucks with Frank before heading to the registration tables at Lodi Lake.
I had promised Tim I would try my best to be there and I had also persuaded Frank to run so I felt even more compelled to be there ....
As I said, the day dawned bright but very chilly so I kept my running jacket on until the start of the race but then decided to keep it on because the wind (coming off of Lodi Lake) was blowing quite steadily ....
There were only about 280 people running this venue (not the smallest venue I have run) so it was very relaxed. Literally, at a little after 8 am the announcer yelled "1, 2, 3 Go!" and we were off. I had studied the course a bit before the race and was disappointed to see that part of the course was a loop and I hate loops as much as I hate wind in my face so that was a bit of a downer ...
I took off a bit too fast (when will I ever learn!!) but this time it was really not intentional. There were too many kids ages 9 - 12 or so that were running and really had had no instructions on how to run a race so they were cutting in front of people and a couple of times I almost tripped because they kept cutting in front of me. I think it is great that the community and the parents get kids involved in exercise early so they learn and understand the benefits but it's also important to teach them race etiquette. How about we start with "Don't cut in front of other runners!"
I kept pace with my Garmin and when I saw that I had gone out a bit too fast (8:15) I slowed down to about a 9:20 and stayed there for about the first 3/4 mile before picking it up to about a 9:05. The wind had surprisingly died down by this point and I really wanted to take my jacket off but my pinned bib prevented me from doing so, so I sucked it up and dealt with the sweat ....
No knee pain, no foot pain, no joint pain. Except for the wind it was an exceptional day and an exceptional race as I set a new PR for the 5K: I came in at 27:59. My goal had been 28:00 so I was estactic... my overall pace was a 9:02.. How cool is that? The Runnerchik is back!!!!
Well that will probably be my race for June. I am going to start running with Carmen's group again and will meet them every Saturday for my long runs (that is, if I don't hop in my car and go to Santa Cruz to run and then chill on the beach .... ).
Stay tuned fellow runners... Wharf to Wharf is coming up in July and I intend to set another PR there. In the meantime, I am running 25 - 30 miles weekly. I will start going out to the track to do some speed work as soon as Delta finishes working on the track.
Oh, I am also going back to Yoga starting tomorrow. I signed up for 10 sessions of Bikram Yoga. It is time to get back to working on my core and also to cleanse ... I'll let you know how it goes as I haven't done yoga in a year.
Have you gone for your run today?
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