Saturday morning marked my last road race for a while. I will be having major surgery (more on that on a later date) in April, so I will be out of commission and then recovering for a while. I plan to put some more races on the calendar once I'm feeling better. Until then, the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon in November is the only thing I have scheduled for the time being.
I signed up for the DC Running Club's The Runway 5 Miler. It sounded like it would be so much fun and after the Rock 'n' Roll USA Half Marathon earlier in March, a small, local race sounded very palatable.
The race was women's only, and after the SELF Magazine hoopla this week, I thought doing a women's only race was very appropriate. I was pleased to see lots of ladies rocking the tutus. I myself don't have a tutu but decided to wear a skirt.
I decided to pick up my bib the morning of, so Raisin Bread and I drove down to Hains Point and arrived at 7:30 am. The hubby volunteered to go with me. He is so sweet, and we drove since it would take forever to get to the start line by public transportation. Also, the weather was not pleasant that morning.
The race was super small, compared to the other ones I have run, with only about 300 finishers. Picking up my bib was a breeze, so with Raisin Bread napping in the car, I had time to stretch and take pictures of the crazy amount of fog.
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| Fog over the Potomac River |
The race started five minutes late, so we weren't off until 8:05 am. If you have ever run on Hains Point, you know that it isn't the most scenic place, except for maybe when the cherry blossoms are blooming. That combined with the fog made it so there wasn't much to see.
In addition to the 5 miler, there was also a 5K option, which started at the same time as the 5 miler. Both routes were out and back, so the 5K runners turned around just past the water stop, and the 5 milers continued until our half way point. Because the race was so small, there weren't any mile markers.
I felt pretty good the whole time. It was pretty drizzly during the entire race, but it was also humid so the drizzle felt really nice to me. It didn't start raining a good bit until the tail end of the race, so that was pretty good timing for me.
The finish line had a red carpet with photographers (paparazzi?) capturing our finishes. Once I was done, I got my medal and then got in line to get refreshments and my race shirt. By the time I finished, they had run out of bananas. Boohoo.
Additionally, when I signed up for the race, it was advertised that we would also be getting a long stem rose and that there would be a step and repeat. Let's just say - these were no where to be found. I didn't get a rose. Raisin Bread also mentioned that he did not see anyone with roses. There also weren't any step and repeats that I saw.
The race times were captured by clock time, with everyone having the same start time. My official finish time was 54:48. This was 30 seconds longer than my RunKeeper time of 54:18.
Here are my split times from RunKeeper:
Mile 1: 11:26 *bathroom stop
Mile 2: 10:41
Mile 3: 10:42
Mile 4: 10:54
Mile 5: 10:38 *fastest mile
As you can see from my splits, I need some work on my pacing. Why is my last mile my fastest? I think I need to push myself a little bit more at the beginning.
Besides the falsely advertised perks, this race was a nice change of pace from the enormous ones that I usually sign up for.
Over the next few months, I'll be living vicariously through the race reports of my fellow bloggers! Hopefully, I will be back at it soon enough.
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