Wednesday, May 7, 2008

2008 Go Red for Women 5K

This year Disney held their Go Red for Women 5K at Epcot, as opposed to Downtown Disney last year. We started off in the parking lot, wound through a back entrance into the park, then past Spaceship Earth, around World Showcase back past Spaceship Earth and back out into the parking lot. Epcot is probably my favourite park of all time thanks to the World Showcase so I loved the idea of being able to race a loop around there in the early hours of the morning. This was a family affair as both my mom and dad were participating. At the start I ran into a group of friends - I finally got to meet Scott and his racing buddy Amy and I met up with Moon again. A big group of us chit chatted and took photos, then it was time to line up for the start.
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The start... It was interesting. You were supposed to self corral yourself according to your pace, so I plopped myself in the middle of the 9:00 - 11:00 mile area. Minnie Mouse counted us down and then we were off. Or some of us were off. Two women right in front of me ran the first few yards, then looked at each other and said, "well, that's enough running, let's walk now." I wound up dodging all kinds of walkers that started way ahead of the pack as they were hoping to somehow skirt around the advertised maximum 15:00/mi pace. Anyhow, I wanted to be really mindful of not starting out too fast so I thought if I could keep my pace around a 9:30 for the first mile I'd have enough gas in the tank (and in the legs) to pick it up for miles 2 and 3. Sigh...apparently not so as my shins started to announce their presence at their trademarked distance of one mile into the race and my pace dropped back. Things improved in mile 3 but not enough so that I'd be able to beat 30 min or beat my time from the week before. I still finished strong and crossed the line at 30:42. As I was coming down to the finish line I recognized Lana on the sidelines. I waved, she recognized me and cheered me on. I have to say thanks Lana for waiting at the finish line for me even though Bill had already made it through a few minutes ahead of me! (Plus Bill PR'd to boot!) After I got my medal and some grub I met up with Lana and Bill and we talked for awhile while my parents rolled in to the finish. Also a big congrats to my folks who both got personal bests that day as well. Okay, so no PR for me, but it was a fun race!
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Anyhow, here are the final details:

Distance: 5K
Clock Time 31:03
Chip Time 30:42 (09:42/mi)
Overall Place 304/1796
Gender Place 253/1632
Division Place 249/1627
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And some final thoughts on the 5K distance for me: I think that one of these days I'll have to spend some time working to reach my 5K goal of going sub-30:00. I guess it will take a wee bit of speed work, something that I'm really not doing right now. For now I'll leave that goal aside as I start training for my next full marathon in August in QC.

4 comments:

Danielle said...

You know, 5Ks are kind of hard...nature of the beast!!

The women and others you mentioned are the one thing that gets me at races. I love that people get out there and race and do heart healthy things, but I wish they would be polite and if they plan to walk and/or go slower, they would place themselves accordingly. Planning for myself to run fast and being near the front I've had to dodge walkers...it sucks.

Bill said...

It was great meeting up with you, too! We're already looking forward to the next time we get to run with you.

And don't worry too bad about the sub-30:00 5K. You'll get there when you can, but it's not that important when you're training for marathons. And in those, you're a total rock star!

TNTcoach Ken said...

Fun is the key, forget about PR's...just kidding. You have a lot more races in your future.

holowahini said...

Those walkers drive me nuts! Weaving in and out of them drives me crazy. It's an etiquette thing for me - they have pacing groups for a reason, and if you're not going to run, get to the sides and out of the way. *sigh*

I thought you did great and it was so nice to meet you!!!