Back in the red

I was bagged for this run. We arrived home around 2:30am from a wedding. The last of the Four Amigos, finally got married.

Woo hoo! Good times. Nice venue.

But I decided that I'd do the race anyways, knowing this. So I drank very little. Some champagne, a glass of wine, gin and tonic, and lots of water. And I ate lots of bread and whatever was on my plate. It was yummy. I would have taken a photo but I wolfed it down. I was doing my race prep.

For the first time I was in the second corral (Green). Since my time last year was just past 40mins. I had to tie my shoelace in the last km to the finish and it ate into my buffer for the finish up Spring Hill. This time around I made sure my laces were tied.

Like I said. I was tired. It didn't help that it was windy and chilly. But at least it wasn't raining.
It felt like I was laboring the whole way. At 4k I was just over 18mins. I was on track. Between 6 and 7k it was getting tough. By the time I hit 7k I figured I'd better hurry up to the bottom of Spring Hill. It was a 300m hill but after 7.5k getting up this hill your heart feels like it's going to explode. I didn't stop, but getting up this hill was tough.

My good friend Carol saw me and blasted her megaphone to give me that last little bit to get to the top and finish. I also heard some yell my name. Not sure who it was but I'm sure it was someone from our fitness club.

I was so tired. I'd pretty much left it out on the course. My head was pounding. I even forgot to stop my stopwatch. The race clock said 39:23. My watch said 39:06 and that's when I remembered to hit stop.

This is my take home prize. Reason why I do the 8k instead of the 5k. Is because I get to hit the food station before any 5k'ers arrive. I get enough for the week. I thought I had gotten more bagels but I know I ate 1 and thought I had at least 1 more. Ah well. They're fattening anyways.
Master Dave "firefighter" Lee was my mentor and is the king of this grab-n-stash technique. Although I think he'd be disappointed I didn't fill my knapsack.

# Splits Time
1k 4:34.63 4:34.63
2k 4:32.51 9:07.14
3k 4:49.19 13:56.33
4k 5:03.33 18:59.66
5k 4:58.99 23:58.65
6k 4:44.02 28:42.67
7k 4:56.02 33:38.69
8k 5:28.13 39:06.82

Official Chip Time: 38:52.3 (pace 4:51 per km)
Official Gun Time: 39:31.3

Next year I'm back in the RED corral where I belong!