Race Result

Racer:	Kristin Adkins
Race:	Goblin Gallup 5K
Date:	Sunday, October 31, 2004
Location:	Fair Lakes, VA
Race Type:	Run - 5 km
Age Group:	Female 30 - 34
Time:	28:29:26
Comment:	Went out wayyyyyyy tooooooooooooo FAST!!!!!!!!!!!

Race Report:

I wanted to see how I far I had come from the beginning of the season, when I did a 5K in April. That time was 29:31. I figured that I would do much better than that in this race since I was running several times a week since April. But, I forgot several racing rules:

1. Remember to drink water before the race.
2. Don't run at other people's speeds.

This was a fun run, no timing mats. I'm not even sure that you could find the official times out on the Internet. At the time of the race, I didn't know this, so I started as close to the front as possible to not add much extra time. Problem with that was that the people in the front were hauling. My best mile pace in a race before was 9:37, my first mile in this race was 8:32. I guess its nice to know that I can run that fast, but it wasn't nice yesterday. As I started the race, within the first 1/2 mile, I was thirsty and hot. Realized my first mistake of forgetting to drink on my way to the race. When I got to the first mile, they called out the times, and I hit my watch. I couldn't believe the time that they told me. This is where I realized my second mistake. Walked through the water station at 1.5 miles, trying to get a lot of water in, which then immediately caused me to cramp as I was running up the next hill. Had to walk a little bit of the hill to release the cramp, then continued on. Second mile was 9:51. Last mile was 10:15.

I was shocked when I finished that I had beaten my previous 5K time since I had walked and definitely moved slower. The last 1/2 mile I tried to pick up the pace, which is scary in retrospect since it was slower than the other two. The other thing that was different this time than in April is that I had swum Friday night, biked with the RATS Saturday morning and then showed up to run on Sunday. I'm definitely tired today!

The Goblin Gallup was a fun race, beautiful day, and was over before things got too hot. I was very glad I was there instead of downtown trying to run a marathon.

I've signed up for a Thanksgiving Day 10K, hoping that I've learned my lessons that I need to drink and slow down to maintain my pace, not others.