Halloween Hunt 5 Mile Race

This morning I ran my longest race to date, 5 miles. I've run 5 miles several times, but this was the first time doing it with a piece of paper pinned to my shirt. It's a flat course, but most of it is around a lake at Long Hunter State Park and it loops twice so I was worried it would be kinda boring. It wasn't as bad as I expected because the leaves changing color made it a very scenic run and a little portion of it is on a bridge that crosses the lake. But between the fear of boredom and my knee, my primary goal was to finish in under 50 minutes with a secondary goal of finishing in under 45 minutes. I figured that was a long shot since my fastest time for 5 miles was 46:58 just a few days ago.

So me, my sister and my friend John all started off and we severely misjudged where to start because we had to run around a ton of people (a lot in costumes). John and my sister started off pretty fast and once we got around all the slower people I let them go so I wouldn't burn myself out. I ended up passing my sister sometime during the 2nd mile, but never passed John. They had people calling out times at the mile markers, but the one for mile 4 was at the wrong place and for a minute I thought I had somehow run a 7:28 mile. Garmin said otherwise.

As I rounded the corner where I could see the finish line I looked down at my watch and almost passed out. I crossed with the clock reading 42:58 and my Garmin (which I started when I crossed the start line) reading 42:50. How on earth did I run that fast and why am I not physically paying for it now!? Regardless I am ecstatic with that time even though I missed 5th place (and a snazzy coffee mug) by less than a minute. I knew I would set a PR since this is my first 5 mile race, but I'm glad it's one that I am happy about and proud of.

Splits (from Garmin time)
1 - 8:26
2 - 8:38
3 - 8:45
4 - 8:55
5 - 8:05 (Holy Crap!)
Overall Pace - 8:34

So in the end John finished ahead of me by about 15 seconds (I let him have this one after I embarrassed him at the 5k last month), I finished next and my sister came in just a hair over 45 minutes so we all had a good day. I didn't have anyone take pictures with my camera so I'll have pictures whenever other people get them to me. And now I will go drink my celebratory beer :)