McGuire’s St. Patrick’s Day 5K

Well hello, hello and happy Monday! I hope the time change is treating you well!

I’m kind of torn about this whole time change thing. On one hand, it is definitely nice to have an extra hour in the evening, but on the other hand, I really miss the daylight in the morning and losing an hour of sleep?! Really. That’s just cruel.

Last week was a very busy week and weekend! As per usual, I’ve got a race recap and some other randomness to share with you today.

Race Recap:

We ran the McGuire’s St. Patrick’s Day Prediction 5K in Pensacola Saturday. This was my first time running this race, but Daniel had done it one time before this year (5 years ago). There were over eleven thousand participants in the 5K, which is huge! That’s got to be the biggest 5K that I’ve ever run in. It takes over 10 minutes for all of the runners to even cross the start line.

An added twist is that it is a prediction run, which means that each person guesses their finish time and person who finishes closest to the time predicted on their registration form wins. You aren’t allowed to wear a watch and there aren’t any mile markers (or clocks) along the course.

There is also a team division, which makes it fun! I was on the Running Wild female team and Daniel and some of his friends ran on the Lower Alabama Runners team. The top five runners for each team count towards the results and the team with the lowest total time wins (very similar to cross country scoring, but using your time instead of your place).

We carpooled over to Pensacola Saturday morning with some of Daniel’s teammates. The Running Wild crew was meeting at the store before the race to all warm up together as a group. We found a place to park downtown (which is not an easy feat with a race size of 11K) and a few of the guys “escorted” me over to Running Wild, so that I wouldn’t have to run in Pensacola by myself. So chivalrous.

It was fun to get to spend some time with the Pensacola girls. I don’t know many of them very well, since I run for the Fairhope team. Our uniform was supposed to be our regular cheetah singlet with a green tutu. I didn’t have a green tutu, so I went with tall green socks, green shorts and a green hat. Close enough, right?

The race started at 9 a.m. (which is a little bit later than most races, but was kind of nice since we had to drive about an hour to get there anyway). We left the store at 8:30 and ran the mile and a half back to the start together. I managed to find Daniel in the mob of folks in time for a quick kiss and then we were off!

Several people told me before the race to be sure to start at the very front of the race. If you don’t, you waste a lot of time stuck behind and/or weaving around other people. I got a couple of rows back and started just behind Daniel. Everyone takes off sooo fast! Way. too. fast!

It’s a very weird feeling to be racing without a watch and having no idea where you are along the course. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to take a look at the course map before the race, but it most definitely did not. I’ll blame that one on tax season. Ain’t nobody got time for that! I have no clue what my splits were, but I do know that I finished in 19:23. Since I don’t have proof otherwise, let’s just pretend that I ran 6:14 pace for each mile. Perfectly even. Highly unlikely.

I predicted 19:15, so I was 8 seconds off of my predicted time. Not too bad, but definitely nowhere close enough to win the prediction contest. I think I was somewhere around 150th in the prediction department. I was 5th girl in the speed department (which let’s face it, is what I care more about) and my team got 1st place in the female division!

Daniel ran 18:05 (5:49 pace)! He was smokin! His team did really well and they ended up in second place. He predicted 18:12 for his time, so he was 7 seconds under his predicted time. That was good enough for 130th in the prediction division. He was in the top 20 or so overall for speed, so that was good!

We got in a 4 mile cool down after the race and stayed around at the post-race party for a little while. This race is more known for its after party than the actual race itself. I wasn’t really expecting it to be all that much fun, but I was pleasantly surprised. We had a great time!

Other randomness from the week:

Daniel and I showed up at group run Tuesday night wearing the same outfit. It wasn’t planned. He wouldn’t even let me get a picture. I think he was embarrassed. It’s happened before, and probably will happen again. We run a lot of the same races, so we have a lot of the same shirts. Married runner problems.

We hung out at Gumbo Shack with some friends after our group run. I feel like this place has been featured on diners, drive-ins and dives, but my google search turned up some inconclusive evidence and I lost heart in the search efforts. Bottom line, if it hasn’t been, it should be. It’s a hole in the wall kind of place, perfect for hanging out post-run!

I had a tempo workout Wednesday to do (actually it was supposed to be done Tuesday, but I procrastinated and put it off). We had a really rainy week and the temperatures have definitely started to heat up. I struggled through the workout and ended it up cutting it short. It was supposed to be a 4 mile warm up, a 4 mile tempo and a 4 mile cool down. I ended up doing a 4 mile warm up, only a 3 mile tempo (6:38, 6:40, 6:50) and a 5 mile cool down. You win some, you lose some.

Thursday evening we had a baby shower for one of the girls in our small group. I was in charge of drinks. Who knew that there were so many questions about planning drinks for a baby shower?! I’m pretty sure that next time I will be in charge of plates or something. I was in a little over my head. I’m just kidding, kind of. I found a really easy punch recipe and it actually turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.

Check us out!

We went to a birthday party for one of Daniel’s buddies, Ali, Sunday evening. He turned 40 and his wife, Melanie, organized a fun little surprise party for him. Ali is originally from England. All the guys like to give him a hard time about being British. He got this *almost* life sized (photo shopped) poster that shows him saluting the American flag, instead of the British flag.

Whew. Okay … I think that pretty much catches us up. There was more running and working that took place, but all that is pretty much status quo.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!