Renovating Kaeti

On Saturday morning, I got up early after a fitful night of sleep so I would have time to eat and relax a bit before going over to the race. Even in the 6 o’clock hour I was ready to put my game face on.

When we got to the race, they were running a little behind schedule (maybe the race officials were celebrating St. Patty’s early), so we stood around freezing our bums off for 45 minutes before we started. Finally, we lined up for the start and I positioned myself somewhere near the front-middle of the pack.

The course was so icy that the entire mass of runners slid down the first hill we encountered. The route was incredibly slick, so my race-day mantra ended up being “don’t fall, don’t fall, there’s less ice over there, don’t fall.” But the condition did have its advantages. For example, it was kind of hilarious to watch the elitist-elite types pass me and then start skidding around on the ice. That’s what you get for running fast.

But all kidding aside, I was very impressed by both the 10-mile group and 5Kers. Especially the 10-mile runners who finished before I finished the 5K — way to make me look bad, guys. Thanks.¹

(Click to enlarge.)

So after running around the lake on a sheet of ice trying to pass as a road, I finally made it up the hill to the finish line.

Notice the stylish green gloves. I was getting into the spirit of things. So much so that my holiday cheer propelled me across the finish line with a 26:?? time! They haven’t posted the official times, but my watch put me at 26:38. We weren’t chip timed, so this is my best guess (I’ll have to wait and see if they post the 5K results online). I’m just so excited to have finished my first race — the 26 on my watch is just icing on the cake. And speaking of food . . .

Mmm . . . the post-race breakfast was definitely a highlight. And that was the day in a nutshell. Thank you everyone for your support and encouragement — I couldn’t have done it without y’all!

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1. To my credit, the 10-milers started 15 minutes before the 5Kers.

Tags: 100% Irish for a Day 5K, my first race, pancakes, Race Report, St. Patrick's day race

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under race reports, running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.