Race Report: 2016 Teal Diva 5K

(Originally posted May 9, 2016.)

Well, I ran well, and helped raise a bunch of money to fight ovarian cancer, so that’s good. The weather was pretty nice. And I had fun.

I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t actually a 5K though. I only ran 2.85 miles, so it was a full .25 short.

The race was in Mooresville, which is a haul for me, about a 50 minute drive. There was no Thursday packet pickup, only Friday, but it was all day Friday. Really, I can’t criticize too much because I would have had to get to Mooresville on a Friday afternoon to pick up my packet, and with traffic, it would have easily taken me about an hour an a half each way.

Since the event was a run/walk, and it was really a fundraiser first and a race second, there were a lot of walkers, including my parents. (Had my injury recovery not gone well, I would have been a walker, too.) They stayed with me for the weekend, arriving Friday afternoon. We ate pizza for dinner Friday night.

Saturday morning, I got up and showered, ate two chocolate chip Clif bars, brushed my teeth, used the bathroom, and drove up to Mooresville with my parents. I actually drove my Dad’s car (basically it was more convenient that way), so I could have left my car key in the car during the race, but of course I had to bring it with me for the post-race picture.

We got there a few minutes before 8. They had separate lines for packet pickup for the runners and walkers, since the walkers didn’t get bibs with timing chips, just t-shirts. The race t-shirt (which everybody got) was sadly not a tech tee.

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It really is teal, even though the light makes it look more blue.

I got my bib. They had safety pins available, but I brought my own because I have too many already.

At this point, if I had been alone, I would have started doing a warm-up run. We were at a high school, and the end of the race involved doing a lap around the track, so I had a place where I could run around and not have to worry about missing the start. However, I was part of a fundraising team. (I didn’t do any actual fundraising, I just paid the race entry fee and made a separate donation.) And we had a team picture scheduled for 8:15, 15 minutes before the race was scheduled to begin.

I waited around for everybody to get there. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew got there, which was cool. My sister was walking, but my brother-in-law was going to race while pushing my nephew in a stroller. Of course, my nephew would be strapped in so he wouldn’t try to chase after me again like he did during the Raleigh City of Oaks Marathon. (My nephew is the best, by the way.)

It was after 8:20 before we finally got the team picture taken. I felt like I didn’t have enough time to do a formal warm-up, but I still ran around a little bit. Eventually, I made it over to the starting line. I noticed that there was no timing mat, so I figured it was gun time only.

Apparently, there were still people in line for registration and/or packet pick-up as we approached 8:30, so they delayed the start by a few minutes. I got this picture while I was waiting.

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I moved up pretty close to the starting line after I took that picture.

At 8:38, after a really short countdown from 3, we were off.

Mile 1: 8:56

I started out pretty fast. There was a gradual downhill early that helped. My legs didn’t feel great, though. My pace started out somewhere around 8:30 and slowly crept up.

Mile 2: 9:47

Garmin says there was 23 feet of climb on this part, but it felt like more than that. My legs didn’t have much, but it’s still a decent time.

There was a water stop was around the 1.3 mile mark, but I skipped it because I was holding out slim hopes for a PR, and didn’t feel like water would help.

Last .85: 7:56 (9:20/mile pace)

Again, legs didn’t feel all that great, but I tried to hang on.

The course ended with a lap around the track. As I started my lap, my Garmin said…2.60 miles? OK, I guess this is gonna be a little short. I crossed the finish line, and got a medal, a water, and a banana. My official time was 26:41.

The medal makes it more difficult to take my post-race car key picture. After a few tries, I got it.

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I got to see my brother-in-law and nephew finish. (33:38, which I’m not convinced I could do while pushing a stroller, even with the short course.) They gave my nephew a medal, too, which I thought was cool. (Even my parents, who finished about an hour after the start, got medals.)

There was no post-race beer. I won’t fault a race if they don’t have beer. (Since it was at a high school, they may have some rules about that.) I’ll only criticize a race if they have crappy non-local beer like Michelob Ultra.

Considering everything, I really can’t complain about my performance. I missed 20 days of running due to injury, and have had to seriously cut back on my mileage since then, so I wasn’t at my peak. And yet, it was the 4th fastest average pace I’ve ever had on a run, behind my two fastest 5Ks (2015 Joe Davis Memorial 5K, 2015 Yiassou Greek Festival 5K) and one time when the Y was strictly enforcing their 30 minute time limit on the treadmills, so I went all out and made those 30 minutes count.

I guess I’m on my way back.