Washington Cherry Festival – 5K – 22:04

06/05/2011 by Mrs.CJ 15 Comments

This race was not on our calendar and we didn’t make a call about it until just before bed to get up and drive out for this race. We’ve ran it in the past, but I’m feeling quite stale in running and I know my legs are ready to be fast. But that ended up being a reason to go, to wake the legs up. We have some short races on the books for the summer and I need to get back into training mode again.

While I didn’t have a great performance, I wilted in the sun and didn’t have the effort needed, I still had an amazing time and here’s why. First our friends Jo and Drew were both doing the race. Races let us get caught up with our friends and get in a workout. Turns out on that Rob and I both made the race brochure for this race and we had no idea, how funny!

After a quick warm up it was easy to tell that the 80 degrees and muggy air would not feel great while racing. As we head to line up I got a pleasant surprise. A girl came up said, good luck and I say “thanks, you too”, trying to place her. Was she one of the ladies who was top three last year or was she from my running club and she says, “I’m Jamie, a follower of your blog”. 😀 I love that and immediately hug her and ask her if she comments, blogs, do I currently follow her blog? She says no, that she has just kept up on some of my past posts. I promise to post about meeting her and ask her to comment, so I hope this shout out does the trick. I have to say, someone reading my blog and introducing themselves is a race highlight for sure!

We line up for the race and are off. By mile 1 I know I’m in trouble with the heat, humidity and no speed training. I will be lucky to survive this as my pace is clearly off. I’m second female until mile 2 and a girl passes me and I say good job as she goes by. I try to stay with her, but I’m feeling like utter crap. I feel like I’m completely starting over. I have no speed, nothing to tap into at the moment and just hoof it in for 3rd female.

I definitely need to work on my running form, but at least I’m smiling. 🙂

I’m a slimy mess from the heat and see Rob was melted to. He came in with a 21:06, way off pace as well. I see Jamie (I hope I’m spelling your name right) come in and grab her a water and chat for a bit. Drew then comes busting in at 26:55 with a new PR and completely passes 27 minutes and takes nearly 2 minutes off his time. His Steamboat hill training is really paying off!! Jo also had a heat induced melt experience as she is trying to figure out how to manage her new asthma medicine.

I hope that this race helps shake up my legs and I can build back some speed in the coming months. It will be fun to get in some good workouts.

Here is me with my award.

Stats:

22:04

7:04 Pace (boo)

F: 3/?

Overall: 35/460