Running Raceday Recap!!

Zoo Zoom at Sacramento Zoo

Today was a beautiful day for a run! The sun was shining, temperature was perfect, no wind, great company too!! This time we headed out to Sacramento for the Sacramento Zoo Zoom run. The schedule for the day was a little different than usual with the 5K starting first. Usually Julie's race starts before mine so we end up finishing pretty close to the same time. But this time it was my turn to go first, which was great because Julie was able to snap a few pics as I went out and when I got back. Every race I do I seem to learn more. Todays lesson was: Know your race pace, and position yourself ahead of the group you "think" you should be in at the start. That way you don't have to weave your way around all of the really slow runners/walkers. For the first mile, I spent most of it bobbing and weaving in and out of people that couldn't get out of their own way, let alone mine. As I'm running along my music is pumping in time with my strides, and my Runkeeper chimes in at the 1 mile mark and gives me the lowdown on my run. At the 1 mile mark, I ran a 9:32 min/mile. I'm like, crap!! I need to slow down or I'm gonna burn out before the 2nd mile. I was thinking maybe my speed was up due to the Sports Beans I downed right before the race or maybe it was taking the day off before the race. Whatever it was, it was working. Because when I got to mile 2, my speed hadn't gone down that much. I had just ran another sub-10 minute mile. All of  a sudden I started thinking. I could theoretically finish this race under 30 minutes if I can maintain this pace. Unfortunately that damn 2.5 mile jinx crept in and knocked the shit out of me. At mile 2.5 my lungs felt like they were on fire and I had to really slow it down. I need to start carrying an inhaler with me on my runs to keep this from happening. At mile 2.9 they just gave out and I had to walk for second to catch my breath. Damn It!! I was within sight of the finish line and I had to walk. I couldn't make the whole run without stopping. I only walked for about 20 yards counting the other runners that were passing me. At mile 3, I sucked it up and sprinted out the last 1/8 mile, passing all but 2 of the people that passed me while I was walking. My official time was 31:42 which is to date my best time so far!! All in all it was a great day of racing.

Sprinting to the finish!! (and yes, I passed that group!!)