Sunday, April 29, 2007

Will Wonders Never Cease...GIG results

The Get in Gear (GIG) races were held yesterday. The weather could not have been more cooperative: warm, sunny -- just lovely.

This event is known as a 'kick off to summer running' event and generally draws about 5,000 plus runners who participate in a 5K, 10K or 2K event.

GIG was the event that the Beginning Running group I've been coaching were working towards. Realistically, they all should have participated in the 5K event, but I had a number of "over achievers" that wanted to do the 10K. I found this out after I signed up for the 5k....

This actually worked out very well, since the 10k started first and, running the 5K, which started about 20 minutes after the 10K, I could be done with my event and still be there to cheer everyone on as they got to the finish line.

I had an unbelievely good race. I felt very good throughout -- only took a couple of walk breaks, ran the tangents and just kept one foot in front of the other.

It got warm out there on the course but even that felt good.

In all my years of running (almost 10 years now), I've always wanted to run a 5K in 30 minutes or less....I did not hit that goal this time around, BUT I did finish with my best time ever: 31.04 for a pace of 10 mintue per mile.

Even more unbelieveably for me was that I finished 14th out of 66 women in my age group category.

I typically finish very near the bottom of my age group...and I know that I should not take much pride in this placing for this race. There are a lot of people that run this event without training at all or very much -- some people walk the course.

BUT, I'm very happy with my placing for the event nonetheless. Maybe this is my year for a 30-minute or less 5K.

My running group did very well in the 10K event -- they all finished and were very proud of themselves. I was too. They all worked very hard this season and I had a great time working with all of them.

I had lots of other friends from my running club that did the 10k was well. They all finished strong, despite the temps.

I'm registered for a 1/2 marathon next weekend and I have not been training very hard for the distance. I've been debating doing the event at all. This is a race where I have placed second to last a couple times in the event.

It is a point-to-point course and I'm afraid that I'll be so far behind that I'll miss the last bus back to the start line to get my car to go home... Hubby assured me that if that happens, he'll come and get me.

I ran some extra miles after the 5k yesterday to help me be somewhat prepared for next week Sunday. The extra miles helped, but I still am not quite sure how I'll do next week.

I'll keep you posted.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Way to go, Amy! Wow - what a great time and pace! You're proably "ripe" for a half marathon PR next week. You go, girl!!!

Dori said...

Hey- a PR! Congratulations! I'm jealous of your 5K time; that's my goal. :-)

You'll never know how you'll do at Wells until you actually do it. Good luck! Maybe you and G can arrange it so that one leaves a car at the finish, like we did last year. He's nervous too.

peter said...

Nice time in the 5K. I have a sister who lives in St. Paul, she runs the Aurora Borealis yarn shop over there. I stayed at her house when I ran the TCM in 2004; I loved it. When I drove back east, I stopped in Madison on my way through WI. I walked around the roof (observation deck?) of the State Capitol, it was fun. You live in a great part of the country, all except for trying to run in the winter.