The 5K That Wasn't

On Thanksgiving morning I participated in my first Turkey Trot. It was a 5K to benefit one of the local YMCAs in town and my first 5K! My friend Randi and I both participated and Randi's husband Ryan cheered us on and even better, held our stuff :)

The race started at 9a and the temp was 12 degrees so I decided that layering was extremely necessary. I think I ended up with 2 bottom layers and 6 layers on top along with gloves and one of those hat bands. I actually think I over did it with the top layers and could have stuck with 4-5 and been fine. Plus, by the end of the race I fully hated the gloves I was wearing and thought about throwing them off. They were just $1 target gloves and not fancy running gloves so that might be why.

Here's Randi and I at the start (I'm pretty sure the better picture is on her camera). We decided to line up with the 10 minute mile pace group. 

We started out strong and spent the first few minutes winding around and passing people. I thought we were going to do awesome, but then Randi started to have some breathing issues (most likely because she didn't train outside). I hung out with her for the first mile or so  and then decided to just go at my own pace in an effort to get a sub 30 minute time. After that I was pretty touch and go. The only mile marker I was able to see was the 3rd one, so for most of the race I had no idea how I was pacing myself. My best bet is that I started out way too fast because during the 2nd mile (or what I think the 2nd mile was) I kept on having to stop to walk.

I'm glad I was able to see the 3rd mile marker though because I totally picked it up after that in an effort to make up for some of the walking. I ended up crossing the finish under the 30 minute mark, so I was really excited!

Here I am walking through the shoot to drop off my time tag.

After that I walked back to the finish to see Randi cross. I managed to see her but wasn't able to get a finish line photo.

After a while of waiting around the results posted and I came in at 29:24! I was really excited that I actually met goal and came in under 30 minutes. 

That was until I checked the official race results online the next day and saw the following:

Briargate YMCA/Kaiser Permanente Turkey Trot 2.8M 2.82 Miles November 25, 2010 in Colorado Springs, CO As you may already be aware, the course was inadvertently cut short during the race which made the course 2.8 instead of 3.1 miles (the outlined course is marked off as a 5K). The YMCA and Colorado Springs Police Department apologize for this error and will be sure to correct it for next year.

2.82 miles!!! What a rip off! So basically what I thought was a really awesome time actually wasn't that great after all. My overall pace was 10:26, so I was pretty bummed. However, looking at the bright side, I came in 60th in my age group of 25-29 out of 121 women. 1,744 people participated and I was 931 overall and 391 out of the 919 females that participated. Plus my time beat the average pace of 31:28.

All in all I am still a bit bummed out about it though and am thinking about finding another true 5K to run in the next few weeks. It was a really fun experience though and gave me a good taste of what races are like. I think in the future, pacing myself and not letting the race pace me is going to be my biggest challenge. And, even though the race didn't really end up being the 5K that was promoted, I still want to participate again next year :)