Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all! I hope you’re sporting your green and celebrating in style today! My St. Patty’s festivities began yesterday morning…
Yesterday started off with a yummy pre-race breakfast of 1/2 c. oats, 1/4 c. water, 1/4 c. organic skim milk, 1/2 banana, 1 Tbsp. flax seed, and 1 egg white topped with natural peanut butter and flax. Mmm!
Then it was off to meet up with my lovely “Miles & Meals” running group for our Shamrock n Roll 5K!
The race didn’t start until 10 a.m. which was great! I set my alarm for 8, woke up and had some breakfast, did my devotionals, got dressed, and still managed to watch a few minutes of Downton Abbey before I had to head out. Pretty relaxing morning!
I was pretty nervous because the Weather Channel kept calling for a mixture of rain and snow with temps around 39 degrees. Blah. It started sprinkling as soon as we got to the registration table and continued throughout the morning; however, it was nothing major. (It hailed later that afternoon!) Overall, we had pretty good conditions for our race!
My big goal for the day was to run a sub-24 minute race (although I was secretly hoping to run a sub-23!). Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my watch to pick up a GPS signal again, so I didn’t get any accurate splits during my race. However, at the mile 1 marker, I was running about 7:18, which I knew could set me up for a sub-23 PR!!! (Yes, that realization deserved three exclamation points.)
The course was overall flat, and it’s one that I’ve run plenty of times before. It was an out-and-back (with a turnaround point), so the trail got a little congested at points, but I enjoyed the familiarity and the flatness. By the time I spotted the mile 3 sign, my watch said 22:30, so I knew I’d have to book it to get under 23 minutes. Unfortunately, it just didn’t seem like I had it in me, and I ended the race in 23:20.
Although I was a bit disappointed, I had to remember — that’s the fastest I’ve ever run! My splits ended up being 7:29/mile, and that’s certainly something since I’ve been concentrating on LSD (long slow distance, that is) for my marathon training. I ended up 5th out of 59 in my age group and 37th of 248 overall, so that’s nothing to be ashamed about!
Afterwards, we went to a restaurant on Main Street in Newark called Mojo Main and enjoyed the post-race festivities and food! It was an awesome way to enjoy the end of the race as a group.
Post-race fun with my group co-leader Julie!
I spent the rest of the day getting ready for our first weekend of gatherings at The Journey (with a quick break for fro-yo with a friend!), which ended up being amazing! I. love. my. church.
Today’s agenda: an eight mile run, more gatherings at The Journey, a trip to Trader Joe’s, dinner with friends, and some food prep for the week. Let’s do this!
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