Backpack Dash 5k Recap

Another weekend, another race! I think this is the first time ever that I have done a race two weekends in a row. This 5k was tentatively on my calendar because my friend Bethany's mom planned it, but I didn't actually decide if I was going to do it or until about Thursday night. At that point I decided that getting an official 5k time this early in the year would be a good benchmark for the rest of the year. :)

This race happened in Rossville, a small town about a half hour away from Purdue. I was pretty happy that the start time wasn't until 9 am, so I didn't even have to get up that early! I had asked my parents if they wanted to come and walk it (it was officially a run/walk), and I was very happy when they said yes! My mom has walked one other 5k before, but this was my dad's first. Yay to healthy choices. :)

A picture of my parents and I at my wedding--one of the only good pictures of us (I'll have to change that!)

I got to Rossville around 8:30, so had plenty of time to get my race bib on and decide what to wear. It was 35 degrees, so I was trying to decide if I wanted my light-weight zip-up hoodie on, or if I wanted to go in a t-shirt; I decided on keeping the hoodie, which I think was the right choice even though I was getting pretty toasty by the end. The course was out and back--I ran the first mile too fast at 8:14, so slowed down quite a bit for the next two miles (8:23, 8:39) and was able to speed up a little for the end. I finished up with 26:17, 8:25 pace...not a PR, but not far off, and my best time without D running next to me telling me we can go faster. :) Overall I was pretty happy with how it went!

Beth and I after the 5k. 

My parents walked together and finished around 51:20, which is a pace of about 16:30...not too bad! I was very happy that they decided to come and participate. :)

First Spring Week!

I think we can finally say that Spring is here in full force. This week was [mostly] very warm, and contained several thunderstorms that convinced me that Indiana has accepted that it is Springtime. :) Yay for the end of winter!

This week wasn't overly eventful, although I did find out that I passed the math qualifying exam, which is the monster one, so I was relieved to hear that! :) I have a sprint triathlon coming up next Saturday that my friend Helen is doing with me. We were both feeling a little nervous about the prospect of a tri, so we decided to do a practice run of the whole event (not at race pace, just casually), in an attempt to prove to ourselves that we could do it. Unfortunately, when we woke up on Wednesday, it was storming intensely, so we had to resort to doing the whole practice tri indoors. No problem! :)

We started with 40 minutes on the spin bike, which said it was about 16 miles for me (Helen was over 17, woo!), followed by 3.1 on the treadmill. I was right at 30 minutes for the 5k--a little slow for me, but I have to remind myself that my legs are going to be slower after spending time on the bike immediately beforehand. We swam last just because it made the most sense logistically (not soaking wet on the spin bikes, shower after swimming, etc). We swam the 300 meter swim that we will have to swim in the tri, and I finished in just under 5 minutes. I think we both felt much better afterwards, and now we are ready to conquer this tri! :)

My friend Helen and I after eating delicious burritos to reward ourselves for our practice tri :)

I had an exam on Thursday, which I think went pretty well, and then went out with drinks for Helen and a few other friends on Thursday evening. She lives in Michigan now, so whenever she visits, I make sure to maximize contact time with her. :) This weekend I did a 5k with my friend Bethany--race recap to follow shortly. Today I biked the bike route for next week's tri. I was very relieved when I looked at the course and saw that they had changed it from previous years so there is no longer a humongous hill in the middle! There are still a few decent hills, but I am happy to avoid this monster. :) I ended up biking 16 miles and felt pretty good, so I hope that's a good sign for next weekend. Have a good week, everyone!

Chi Town 10k

On Saturday, my friend Bethany and I participated in the the Chi Town 10k. I have been running consistently lately, but only 3-4 times a week, and not more than 4 miles at any given time, so I was pretty nervous to do a 10k. I figured I would just take it as a training run, and be happy with whatever happened.

The nicest part about this race is that the start line is only about a 5 minute walk from Beth's house, so there was zero stress in getting to the course. Beth and I run about the same pace, and neither of us were expecting a PR, so we decided to run together. Here is a picture of the course route:

The most hilarious/insane thing happened during the race. After the stretch south along the lake shore, the course goes through a small tunnel that passes under Lake Shore Drive. When we got near the tunnel, there was a person from the race saying, "The course route goes through this tunnel, but there is a water leak, so there is a decent amount of water in the tunnel." Beth and I figured it couldn't be too bad, so we ran to the entrance of the tunnel and we saw that there was about 5 inches of standing water! We decided we did not want to run through that (we were only around the halfway point, so we would have had to run over 3 miles with soaking wet shoes); we looked around and saw a ton of people jumping over the guard rail, and then crossing Lake Shore Drive!! This is a very busy, 8 lane road, and traffic was completely stopped because of all the runners making their way across! We joined everyone else, hopped over the guard rail, crossed one direction of the road, hopped another guard rail, crossed the other direction of the road, and then finally were back on the course. It was insane! I am sure the drivers were not happy (understandably!), but we were not sure what else to do! AND a few minutes later, we heard a guy talking to his friend behind us, and he said, "I went through the water, and it was very smelly...I think it was sewage." :-o That made us extremely glad we hadn't tried to tough it through the water! :)

Overall, my race time of 58:45 was quite a bit slower than last year (I expected to be slower), but we had negative splits for every single mile (except for the whole crossing the road fiasco, but I'm quite sure our pace was where it should be for that mile), so I was actually pretty happy with how it went. I felt strong until around mile 5, then I started to feel exhausted. Beth suggested we try to do a 9:00 mile for the final mile, and I said I couldn't, but ended up doing it! Woo. :) Not bad for what I went into the race expecting. Afterwards we had a delicious breakfast: I drank about 4 cups of coffee and ate an awesome croissant sandwich (wish I had a picture to show you!). I'll leave you with a picture of Beth and I after breakfast.