Firecracker 5K

On the 4th of July I ran in a local Firecracker 5K. I met my friend Julie there with her niece. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was only the 2nd annual race of this kind. When I got there I was surprised there wasn't more people but after about 10 minutes they started to pour in. I saw a lot of other people I knew there. I wasn't one bit nervous for this race. That's a first for me! I guess since my last race was a half marathon I didn't feel any need to be nervous. I was using this one as a guide to see how I am doing time wise. I don't ever time myself while training and I have been worried that I have been losing speed. I was hoping this would give me a good idea of what is going on with all that.

The route was a really awesome one, other than I wasn't real thrilled that the last mile was uphill. I tried to conserve my energy at the beginning and pace myself. I didn't have a watch and so I had no idea how I was doing. After the first mile I kept passing people and no one passed me until the very end when I passed a girl and then she turned on the power and passed me back while she cruised to the finish line. I tried really hard to pass her back up, but I was trying to control my IPOD that had come unhooked from my shirt and was flying all over in between my legs! My time was my best so far for a 5K! It was 26:04. It would have been about 10 seconds better (25:54 - or so) except I had to slow down to control the IPOD before I tripped over the wires! I am sure I looked like a total idiot! Imagine if I HAD tripped! That happened about 75 yards before the finish line. But I was still happy with my time especially since I have still been fighting this chest cold for the past month!

I was disappointed in the organizers of the race though because they had no timing system other than they called out your time as you crossed the finish line. They didn't do a list of ages and places and so I have no idea how I did for my age group. One of the ladies there told me she thought I took first in my age division, but not sure how she would have calculated that without any real proof. They also didn't have ANY water at the end. We did get to have the city breakfast for free for entering, but that didn't start for at least 30 minutes after we finished. It wasn't very professionally done. But it was still fun and I was very happy that I have actually improved time wise instead of slowing down. I don't run real fast when I train and so I was pretty sure that had taken an effect on my speed.

I just ordered Jeff Galloway's new book on Marathon running and I am looking forward to seeing what he has to say about the training plan. I didn't do my long run on Saturday because I had read an excerpt from another of his books that said racing is really tough on your muscles and you need to allow your body time to recover from a race to prevent injury. I felt fine, but decided to not chance it. He also said that long runs can only be every other week in the beginning. So I wasn't real stressed. I will be interested to see what this book says about the training. Hopefully I didn't blow it already!