Cinco de Mayo 5K Race report

This was the strangest race I've ever been to. Being my second race and all, that's not saying much. But it was still strange.

Friday night we headed over to pick up our race packets and t-shirts. The address on our form said to head to 130 E. State st. When we typed it into the GPS the only options were for N. State and S. State. Weird. My husband remembered that his dentist is 140 E. State st, so we thought it must be close. As we drove down State st. we couldn't find the building we were looking for! We drove up and down that street 5 times! Finally my husband spotted a tiny 3'x2' lighted sign in a tiny window. In mismatched letters it said "5K sign up here." The "office" was about the size of our bedroom and was full of boxes of race packets. For such a small office, that race seemed to have a lot of participants.

After picking up the packet, we decided to find the park. Good thing! The park we thought it was totally wasn't! After driving up and down that road for 10 minutes we finally located the address. Wow.

On Saturday morning we headed over to the thing we thought was a park. As we pulled into the parking lot (30 minutes before race time, mind you) there was 1 other car there. Something wasn't right here. We grabbed the GPS, looked up the park, and sure enough, it was further down the road! Ugh! Only 1 tiny garage sale sign marked the entrance....on a dead-end road behind a cemetery.

Finally found it! There was such a great turn out! Oh wait....this is a trail race?! No one said anything about a trail race?!?! I'm not prepared for this!

As we were all standing around stretching, warming up, and talking someone (the race organizer) jumped up on the park pavilion table and shouted "OK! Get Ready!" She then held the starting pistol. The other organizer shouted for her to stop because he hadn't set up the time-clock! We then took that moment to pray....After the prayer the organizer attempted to fire the staring pistol, but it didn't work. This is where she then points it at her nose as tried to figure it out. Crazy! The time-clock guy set her straight and we started the race.

The trail part was hard. Sometimes we had to run across the grass. I feared for my ankles the whole time. But it wasn't bad. I enjoyed the scenery.

Because I had been sick over the past week, I wasn't sure how well I'd do. I concentrated on setting a decent pace for myself that didn't overwork my system. I felt like I didn't run as well as the last time. After mile 2 I needed to stop and walk. There was a couple in front of me the whole time and I wanted to pass them so bad! I couldn't catch up until the very end! As we were finishing the last tenth of a mile I found some energy left and kicked their butts!!!

Good thing I did. That extra burst of energy got me 2nd place in my age group! The girl in front of me took 3rd! Wow! I even beat my last time by 15 seconds! Ye Haw for a PR! Official time was 30:10. I received a maraca necklace for my efforts and a sombrero for finishing in the top 100!

For as weird as it was, it was a ton of fun!

Now I have to wait until June 12th for the next race :)