The St. Patty’s Day 8k (5 miler) this morning was a great success!
It was a rainy, gray day in D.C., but fortunately the precipitation held off for the race. My friend Ashley and I arrived early (extra early thanks to daylight savings) to pick up our bibs and t-shirts and to leave time to wait for the portapotties. Nothing worse than arriving late and stressed at a race.
The course ran downtown near the Capitol—very pretty, despite the overcast skies.
There was also a DJ on site trying to get people dancing at 8 a.m., which felt a little odd.
After watching a few people do the Macarena (it never seems to leave), we moved to the starting line—and then disaster struck.
Why wouldn’t my Garmin turn on? I’ve had it for four years—don’t die on me now. We ended up racing without time or pace data. The watch started working again later, but it still wouldn’t charge properly at the time.
So, without a working watch, we were off!
Racing as part of a training plan pushes you to run much faster than on solo runs. Once we settled in, our pace felt strong. My legs were a bit stiff and heavy, but the cool, cloudy weather made for comfortable running conditions.
We had no idea of our actual pace without a watch, so I was stunned to see 41 minutes on the finish clock. Of course I sprinted to the line—if the course clock read 41, our gun time might be under that.
Our official gun time was 40:50, an 8:13 min/mile pace—woohoo! A new PR. My previous 5-mile race PR was 42:57, so this was a big improvement.
I’m proud of what we accomplished.
After the race I met a friend for brunch and now I’m beat. A nap is definitely in order before attempting any work.