Hot Trot Sentiments

It’s almost time for one of my favorite races of the year (and yes … I realize that I have lots of favorites). I’m pretty sure that the LuLu’s Hot Trot is my favorite 5K of the year though. The race is this weekend and I’m getting pretty pumped about it. I just registered today, so I thought it might be fitting to share a few memories of Hot Trots of years past.

I always like to compare race times from year to year to see how my fitness has progressed over the years. Hot Trot is a pretty good one to use, because while the conditions aren’t always (or ever) optimal, the conditions are always the same (i.e., hot and humid). Similar conditions make for better comparison at least.

A quick summary:
2012 – 19:56. The year of my inaugural Hot Trot. Finished (barely) under 20 minutes.
2013 – 19:35. The year I won an hourglass. Super unique prize!
2015 – 20:50. The year of the 3.25 mile 5K. Major bummer.
2016 – 19:05. The year Daniel had to work.
2017 – 19:01. The year that I missed breaking 19:00 by 2 seconds.

Hot Trot also holds a special place in my heart because it was the first race that I ever blogged about! It’s crazy to me to think that this will be my fourth year of blogging. How in the world did that happen?!

Here are some of my favorite pictures and memories over the years!

The race takes place at Lucy Buffett’s restaurant in Gulf Shores, LuLu’s (Lucy Buffett as in sister to Jimmy). The location makes for a wonderful pre-race and post-race environment. The post-race party is always so much fun. Everyone just hangs out at the restaurant before it opens. It is a relaxed, fun beach atmosphere and is very family friendly.

The course is also very flat and would be very fast were it not for the minor detail that it is mid-June in Alabama. I wish they had a race here in November or December. That would be fantastic! The course is best described as out and back with a side loop added on the way back. You hit mile one just before the turnaround and you hit mile two somewhere along the loop. Then you just have to finish the loop and book it back home.

I would absolutely love to be able to break 19:00 this year. I think that is a fairly reasonable goal. It might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s at least within the realm of possibility. Of course, you never know what might happen on race day, but in the meantime, I’m just going to envision running 6:00 to 6:05 pace and hope for the best.

I hope to see some of you guys there!