Race Recap: U.S. AmeriBank Brandon 5K

Good news! This will be my last race recap until late January! :)

I was pretty worried about how I would do during this race. Since the Turkey Trot, I had one run once and while it was a good run, I knew I wanted to better my time and wouldn’t be happy unless that happened.

The race was in Brandon, which meant a 30 minute drive for us. It was a little chilly in the morning, but not too bad. I would say it was in the low 50s around 6am, but headed into the high 50s/low 60s at race time. (My weather app told me it was 55 degrees at race time, but it felt much hotter. And I’m a wimp when it comes to cold weather so 55 degrees would have frozen me solid.)

My mom was running the half-marathon, as a training run for her full next month, so she headed off first at 7am. I was so nervous for her, knowing she wanted a good run after her awful trail run.

My race started at 7:30am and it was a pretty small crowd of people. I was worried that I would get behind quickly, like I did in the trail run, and not see anyone for miles. (Luckily, this didn’t happen. Although I was in the latter part of the group.) Before the race, I met Melanie! I hooked up with her through DailyMile when I saw she was running this race and it was cool to meet, although I didn’t see her afterward to keep chatting.
Boo!

The race was simple and flat. It wound through a shopping center, down a busy street, and through a subdivision, before looping back. I tried not to get too discouraged when I saw the leaders already heading back before I even finished my first mile. (The winner did it in 16:16. Crazy!)

Since I didn’t know if this race would have mile markers, I decided to employ a 12:2 run/walk ratio. The first 12 minutes were horrible, making me question my decision to want to be a runner, especially as I kept falling behind. But I kept running until I hit 12 minutes. About 30 seconds into my walk, I saw the first mile marker. Dang! At least I knew I was going at a pretty good pace.



Once my two minutes of walking were up, I began to run again, stopped for a few seconds at the water stop, and picked up my pace again. This interval wasn’t too bad, although I know I was going pretty slow. I was just focused on running and not stopping.

I took another two-minute walking break when I hit the second mile marker. I had a terrible side stitch that I had to keep massaging. I kept trying to run but it’s hard when it feels like a billion knives are poking you from the inside. I kept massaging my side until it felt like I could run with it and run I did! I ran all the way to the finish, maintaining a pretty good pace and sprinted to the finish.

Finishing time? 42:17. Another personal record for this girl!

 
One day, I will finish a race without looking like death. (Also, chip timing = my time was off by a little.)

For the past few days, I’ve been toying with the idea of training for a 10K or a half-marathon but I think I’m going to stick to 5K’s for the time being until I feel like 3 miles is easy. Right now, it’s still pretty hard and I want to be able to run the entire thing without walking. There’s nothing wrong with walking breaks, but I need to prove to myself I can run a 5K without them. I might shoot for a 10K this summer and maybe (this is a big maybe) a half-marathon next fall.

This was a great race and I would definitely run it again. I love any  race with well-placed mile markers, chip timing, and great spectator support. Even the people taking pictures were giving great support! One of them actually ran over a mile with my mom to the finish and made her keep running! The weather was great and I loved the tech tee I got. I need more long-sleeved ones and this one is perfect! I really can’t think of anything to complain about! They even gave out beer at the finish! :)

Answer me this: what’s the coldest you will walk/run in? For me, it would be anything under 45 degrees. That’s just too cold for this thin-skinned Florida girl!