Super Sunday 5M!

Hi guys!
Yesterday was the day of the Super Sunday 5 Mile Race!

I was really excited for this race (even though I only signed up for it on Friday).  I woke up pretty early feeling like a kid on Christmas morning.  I ate a bagel and had some OJ and coffee for my breakfast.

I got to Cambridge a little after nine, and met up with my friends, Tracy and Miriam.  We were all pretty excited/nervous/scared of the cold!

At a little after 9:30, we walked down to the start to pick up the bibs.  The race didn't start til 10:30, so we did a lot of standing around trying to stay warm!  It was about 27 degrees when the race started.  Luckily it was pretty sunny, so I tried to absorb as much warmth from the sun as I could.

At 10:20, we walked over to the starting line.  Someone sang the National Anthem, fired the gun, and we were off!

I was not warmed up at all, so the beginning of the race was really difficult.  Actually, the entire race was difficult for me.  It was just so cold!

In the first mile, my feet and three of my fingers went completely numb.  I felt like my feet were solids blocks of ice clunking down the street.  I kept telling myself  "it will get better when I warm up."

At mile 2, I was still pretty frozen.  I felt like we were moving at a pretty good pace, but I had no idea how fast or slow we were going.  My Nike plus band only tells me how far I have gone, but not my pace.

At Mile 3, we could see the finish line for the 5k.  There was an option in this race to "bailout" and stop at a 5k.  It was so tempting, but I just told myself to keep going.  I started to run out of steam at this point.  I even started to slowly drop back from Tracy and Miriam  I wanted to keep up with them, but I was really struggling.

More and more people started passing me and I felt like I was running really slow.  Originally, I had wanted to finish the race in 48 minutes.  I had no idea how fast I was going so I tried to tell myself that my time didn't matter so much.  The only thing that matters is crossing the finish line!

In the last mile, I continued to feel sluggish and slow.  Once I turned a corner and saw the finish line I really tried to dig deep and run as fast as I could.  When the clock came into sight, I was completely shocked.  It said 43 minutes and 59 seconds.  I was not expecting my time to be that good.  I thought there must have been a mistake, but there wasn't.  I ran the race at an average pace of 8: 45!

I was so proud of myself! This race was extremely challenging for me, and to see that I did better than expected was so rewarding.

My official time was 43:59 for the five miles.  They also recorded your 5k time.  My 5k time was 26:48; a huge improvement from my first 5k (which took me 31:04).

Likes & Dislikes of this race:

Likes:

• Mostly flat course
•  Started on time
• Organized well
• Announced each persons name as they crossed the finish line (sooo nice!)
• Chicken wings, beer, and live music after race!!!
• Lots of free loot (coconut water, popchips, pretzel crisps...)

Dislikes:

• Not all roads on course were closed
• No medals! :(
• Very cold weather

Here are my splits:

Determination! haha