Luck of the Irish or just a great start to the 2010 race season?

Saturday March 13th was my first race of the 2010 season - the 2nd Annual Finaghty's St Patty's Day Dash (5K) in Snoqualmie Ridge. I competed in this race last year and was excited to race the new course this year. What I wasn't excited about was the fact I had not been running as much and wasn't expecting to do too well at this event.

I got to the race about an hour early so I could grab my race bib and shirt and have time to warm up. I did about 1.5 mile warm up and it was sprinkling the whole time. Right before the start of the race the sun came out and stayed for the whole race - the layers of clothing were not needed and I ended up taking my gloves off 1/2 way through the race and stuffing them down my running tights.

The first mile: Wow did I feel slow! Was it the fact I hadn't raced for over 6 months? Was it the dang hill we had to run up at the start? Was it all the yummy corn bread I ate the day before at Z-Tejas? I held off looking at my Garmin GPS watch to see what my pace was (I had set it to 8:15 minute miles - that's what I would have been happy with) then the 1 mile beep came from my watch and how could I not look? 7:39! Are you kidding me?! I had to look at the time a couple times before it sank in because I couldn't believe with how sluggish I felt that I had gone out that fast on the first mile. At this point I knew I could possibly get a 5K PR if I kept it up. My previous PR was from last April - 24:36 (7:56 minute per mile pace).

The second mile: The excitement kicked in knowing I could possibly PR so the second mile was feeling pretty good. Some rolling hills here and there but a really great course and not too crowded. My watch beeped to let me know I had completed the second mile and the pace was a 7:50 - ok well I slowed down a bit but still pacing under my PR!

The third mile: I finally passed the guy I had been behind the majority of the race - I probably should have passed him early on the second mile but I didn't want to kill myself and I figured he was a good to pace with. We hit this glorious downhill and when we were at the bottom I was behind a mom and daughter. The mom was explaining to her young daughter that there was only a little ways to go but we had to first go up the hill...oh know a fricken hill. At least in my training I run around my neighborhood and there are a couple good hills so I knew I could push trough it. Somewhere along this hill my watched beeped once last time to inform me that I had hit mile 3 - 8:05 pace - gonna be a close one!

The last .1 mile: As I turned onto the street where the finish line was the adrenaline was pumping. I could see the finish line about a block and a half down the road, looked at my watch which read 24:16 - I had less than 20 seconds to get to that finish line for my PR. Every once of engergy I had was forced to go as fast as possible. I crossed the finish line in 24:32 - a new PR! It was sort of sad that I knew nobody at the race and couldn't celebrate but I was still so happy.

After the race I went home and then for a swim and coffee with Caitlin and Kelvin. When I got home, I checked the results and found I had placed 2nd in my division! If I would have stayed I would have gotten a trophy...so of course I e-mailed the race director and asked if I could pick it up. His response was that he usually doesn't do this but he would drop it in the mail b/c "a PR deserves a trophy".

With such a great start to the season I'm very excited what all my training will bring this year. Now the focus is to break 2 hours in my 1/2 Marathon.