We Survived!

My dad and I did the Dino Dash 5k this weekend... Here's a tiny and boring recap of that.  :)

All day Friday it stormed like something crazy.  There was flash flooding in the area all around us and some crazy wicked storms.  I just knew that I'd wake up Saturday and it would still be storming.  My dad had already said that rain or no rain, we were running that 5k. 

Saturday morning I wake up to cloudy skies, but no rain!  I turn on the tv and it said that we had 93% humidity, but no chance of rain.  I was thankful for the no rain, but 93% humidity?!  I wanted to cry.  LOL

Dad came and picked me up, yada yada. 

We line up and dad asks me about the course.  This is where I inform him that I've never ran this race before, but that a friend told me there was a slight incline heading towards the capitol.  We look around and notice that we're starting on a tiny incline, too.  My dad was not amused!!

Anyways, the plan here was for each of us to run our own race.  He didn't want me to stay with him, so I didn't.  I had a goal of 36 minutes (my PR is 34) and I've been running a 38 here lately.  Dad had a goal of 38 minutes.  After what seemed like incline after incline, I finished in 38:28 and dad finished in 39:41.  He later told me his real goal was to beat me.  Gotta love him.  LOL  All in all, we were good with our times.  I mean, 93% humidity and close to 80 degrees... plus incline after incline... We did pretty well! ha!

There are no pictures since it was just us two.  Since this was a smaller race, I'm not sure if they did race pictures either.  But, another 5k with my dad completed!  We have plans of doing another one (much better) on July 4th!

Dad's First 5k Photo

As promised, here is a picture of my dad, stepmom, myself, and hubs after the 5k on Saturday!!!

I have another 5k this Saturday and I'm still sick with a head cold!  I'm hoping it will go away soon! 
Also, I just finished up my final tonight!  Yay!  No school till July!

We did it!

We did it!  My dad had a goal of finishing his first 5k under 40 minutes and I'm PROUD to say we did it!  His official time was 39:32!  He did great and I'm SO proud of him!

A funny thing happened a few feet from the finish line.  My dad had started to walk and I told him, "Dad, you can't walk - we're almost there and you'll come in under 40!"  So I started jogging in front of him instead of beside him (to motivate).  Well, Dad decided to sprint in and hubs decided to grab the back of my shirt and hold me back so that Dad could pass me.  I promise I wasn't going to finish in front of him, but hubs had to make sure!

One more side note - my dad placed 6th out of 10 in his age group!  GO DAD!!!

I'll post pictures and more details tomorrow.  :) 

P.S.  They didn't call with my sister's scan results on Friday.  We're calling them today.

Happy Monday, Ya'll!

FF 5k Race Recap

Remember how I haven't really ran in about 6 or 7 weeks? Remember how I signed up for a 5k this past weekend? Yeah, about that....

It sucked.

I guess I'll elaborate...

The race started at 7:30am and it was a balmy 76 degrees with humidity somewhere around 68%. Ugh.

Mile 1- started off decent. I thought, okay, a little slower than usual but still not too bad.

Mile 2- I'm still running with my friend which is a good sign.

Mile 3 - Told my friend to go on. I was exhausted, hot, and thirsty. Plus, the last mile was a slow incline.

.1 - Thank God, I can see the finish line!

So, here are my splits from my Garmin (from memory). The official race results are gun timed, so I'm not even going to go look at the results.

Mile 1 - 10:54
Mile 2 - 11:28
Mile 3 - 13:29 - um, ouch!
.12 - 10:24 pace

My Garmin time - 37:09. Ew.

So, I've signed up for another 5k that is on the 17th. It's a new course and a race I've never ran before, but I decided that I should do another one because this one sucked so bad. I might even train a little bit for this one. Maybe.

I hope ya'll did better in your races this weekend than I did!

BTW, the winner of the race came in at 13:36 - seriously! 2nd place was a 13:43! And, yes, I think they were both born in Kenya, but live in AR. The race had a $1000 purse for 1st place.

Race Photo

Remember the 5k I ran about 3 weeks ago? That's my "official" finish line photo. You could tell I was breathing a little hard from my sprint. I love to see these photos, but what bugs me is the time clock in the background is never correct since I seem to start in the middle to end of the pack. If you'll remember, my official time was 34:47. If only I knew how to photoshop that... ha! Btw, I did happen to borrow this picture off of their site. :) I love how I look super tall against the other chick. Makes me feel happy since I always feel short standing next to others!

Splits

As promised, here are my splits from Saturday's 5k. I'm still pretty excited about my time. It just amazes me that this time last year, I was struggling to come in under 40 minutes! I can't wait to see how low I can get my time!







I don't have a whole lot going on. My grade should be posted around Thursday according to the school website. I'm pretty anxious to see what I made.

WCR 5k Race Recap

Ya'll, I did it again! I PR'd BIG TIME!!!

The official race results:
65 Mrs. Mess 338 34:47 11:13


I came in 65th in my age group and 338 overall. There were 1400 women registered. About half were runners and half were walkers.


Can you believe that I beat last week's time by 2 whole minutes?!


My main goal was to run for as long as I could and then take a 1 minute walk break. I did pretty well at that! I ran the 1st mile straight through, then ran for 1/2 mile and would walk a minute. It worked out pretty well for me!


There was a race photog, but I don't believe those race pictures have been posted yet. Instead, I leave you with 2 finish line pictures that a friend took. They are so awful that they're funny! So, I hope you enjoy! Also, I'll try to post my splits tomorrow - I forgot to grab that snapshot!





Ohhhh, they're giving me a ribbon! ha!




Now, who can we show this ribbon to?

TS 5k Race Recap

I did it! I broke my PR!

My last 5k PR was 39:29. My time on Saturday was 36:45!!! I broke my 5k PR time by almost 3 minutes!!!


Here are my splits:

Mile 1: 10:34 <--my fastest mile EVER!
Mile 2: 12:12
Mile 3: 12:32
.14: 10:46 pace
Max Speed: 7:47 pace!

I sprinted the last little bit to the finish line, so that I could stay in the 36 minute range!!

A short race recap....

We were running late Saturday morning. I had told my friend N that we'd be there at 7:30 and well, we left our house at 7:20ish. Needless to say, we forgot the camera. Blah, blah, blah. It was hot and muggy. Friday night (and Saturday night) we had tornadoes and bad storms in the area (post for tomorrow). So, it was crazy humid. There were a little over 1000 participants. So, the first mile was a little crazy. I felt great and was trying to get around all the kids and parents - people were everywhere!! I ran the first mile straight through. The first water stop was at Mile 1 and those volunteers were teenage girls who didn't have a clue what they were doing. Needless to say, no water for me. But, that wasn't a big deal. A little after mile 1, the 10k and 5k runners split off from one another. Mile 2 was fine. I slowed down some - I always do, so no surprise there. I felt pretty good. I grabbed a tad bit of water at this water stop. I was running behind a lady and she dropped something and stopped directly in front of me. I dodged her at the last minute as she yelled she was sorry.

Then, came the rain. I didn't mind the rain, but I didn't like the thundering. While coming close to the 3rd mile, I was ready for this to be over with. ha! I knew I was coming in for a nice PR so I told myself to just keep running. The finish line is right after a lap around the track. I hate doing that lap around the track. I always feel so sluggish and I know people are in the stands watching. As I was coming into the track, a woman and her son stopped dead in front of me - causing me to walk for about 3 seconds.

Anywho, I made my way around the track - very slowly and then saw the finish clock. I looked at my Garmin and saw that I was in the 36's and so I booked it to the finish line. Then, of course, I forgot to turn OFF my Garmin - so my Garmin actually says 36:47, but I'm giving myself 2 seconds. LOL

Anywho, the official results online are completely jacked. It has me coming in at 37:04 which is completely wrong. I don't understand it because there was a starting mat and that's where I started my Garmin. But, after posting my frustration on Facebook, a few friends chimed in and said that the race results were indeed wrong. So, I'm going by my Garmin!

Race Report & Strep Throat

Hope everyone had a great Independence Weekend! This will be very short as I'm home and have Strep Throat. Yep, went to the Dr today... I felt great until yesterday and then it all went downhill. Moving on..

The race went really well. Hubs & I woke up at 5:30, got ready, and drove to LR. I had to register on race day (which I hate), so I wanted to make sure to get there with plenty of time.

Breakfast - I had 5 peanut butter crackers. Not what I usually eat before a race, but it's all we had.

We get to LR at 6:30 and I registered with no problems. They were out of all t-shirt sizes except 2xl.. So, I took that and gave it to hubby to do yardwork in. :)

There were a ton of people at the race. The past 3 years I've done the race, there has always been a ton of people. I think there were between 600-800 runners that finished. I could look it up again, but I don't wanna :)

Race starts, I hit the start button on Happy and noticed that it hadn't cleared my time from the last time I used it. I had no idea what buttons to hit, so I just noticed what time I started on and away I went. Mile 1 went pretty well, with the exception that I had to tinkle and there were no porta potties at the race, what-so-ever.

Anyways, it's pretty much downhill until the last mile. Mile 3 you travel up a few nice, long hills. That's where people started to die ...myself included.

Here are my splits:

Mile 1 11:52

Mile 2 12:24

Mile 3 13:34

.10 9:58 pace

Not too terribly bad (for me). My official time was 39:29. I was pretty happy. That's a PR for me! Yay! I was secretly hoping for 38 minutes, but I'm pretty happy with my time.

Also, just an FYI.. usually a Kenyan wins the race..but this year, the Kenyan was beat. The guy that beat him had a pace of 4:20 and the Kenyan had a pace of 4:30!! Wow! Insane!

That's all I've got. I'm going to go rest now!

WCR 5k Race Recap

As promised, a little recap of the 5k I ran this weekend...

I ran the WCR 5k this weekend, with the goal of finishing under 40 minutes. Well, I did it! I finished in 39:38 - which is under 40, so I'm very happy! That makes my average pace 12:47 per mile and I'm happy with that too. :) 

There were approximately 1300 women registered for this event. There were 106 in my age group that were "Clinic Runners" - women who were registered with a clinic, like I was. I came in 84th out of 106. Usually, I'm closer to the bottom, so I was pretty happy with 84th. 

My sister had a burst of energy and ran her fastest race as well. She usually does somewhere around 39 minutes, but this time she did 36 minutes! She was super happy!

So, I've added a few brilliant pictures.. It was kinda early and I had no makeup on... So, don't judge! LOL Hope you enjoy!

The Family Before The Race:

My Sister at Mile Marker 2

Us After the Race

Me & My Finisher's Ribbon

Me & My Sister Afterwards