Happy belated belated 4th of July! The S.O. and I had a fabulous trip! Before hitting Savannah, we stopped in St. Simon’s Island for Thursday night in order to run a 5K on Friday morning and break up the drive. Win-win.
St. Simon’s is adorable and I highly recommend visiting this lovely location. It’s got a cute little downtown and the people were really friendly. Plus, it seems the local running group is very active.
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| St Simon’s Lighthouse and beach. Photo credit HERE. |
Since I had crammed in my workouts on the front half of the week, I didn’t really have plans to “race” this 5K. After a few weeks of very miserable long runs I talked it over with my coach and made this week a split long run. Thus, I ran ten miles on Thursday and six miles (including the 5K) on Friday. I can honestly say this was an awesome way to go. I felt great on the ten miler and my 5K surprised me.
After hitting the pillow hard from driving for four hours, the S.O. and I got up and headed to the race start. There were a lot more runners than I had anticipated but it looked like it would be a fun, well-organized event. We both jogged a couple of miles to warm up (and get in those extra miles I would miss from doing a traditional long run).
The 1 mile fun run started and as the last few milers came heading back in, we 5Kers started lining up. It was a bit of a cluster because the milers were finishing in the direction we were starting and we had all lined up on the wrong side of the finish line. There was some confusion but we all found on our way on the correct side of the tape and got ready to go.
I told the S.O. my plan was to start easy and see how I felt. Actually, this is ALWAYS my plan, and then I end up losing my mind the first mile. Haha. Fortunately, as the horn sounded I did a really good job of holding myself back and letting others pass me. Normally, I would want to chase people down and not get passed but I reminded myself that this wasn’t an A race and I just needed to get in a bit of speed work.
This 5K had a lot of turns and I enjoyed how much they broke up the distance and made for a great change of scenery. I never got bored and there were awesome volunteers at every single turn. I ran my first mile in 7:41. I felt comfortable and tried to make sure I negative split the next mile but not over do it.
I hit my second mile at 7:31 and still knew I could push for another negative split mile toward the finish. I played leap frog with one woman and chased down a guy I saw zoom past me at the start. I supposed the whole negative split thing does actually work. Heh.
I pushed my last mile and hit a 7:22, and a 7:05 for the last .12. I felt really good and I know I could have started a bit faster but I’m glad I played it safe and really enjoyed the race. The post race festivities were awesome and the S.O. got first in his age group and I got fourth in mine.
Final time: 23:27
Hope you had a great 4th holiday!
Great to do a 5k to break up a road trip – cute!
Way to go, speedy!
Sweet! That's a great 5k time. Good job!
Hi – new follower….and another 'Beth'! Congratulations! I love running races in new areas and getting to see somewhere by foot, that's great planning that you found a race along your drive 🙂
Great job on the negative split! I always go out way too fast, even though I have the best intentions not to.
Nice work, nice skirt!
Glad you enjoyed your trip and the 5k!! nice runs 🙂