Weather: 45 degrees | felt like 37 degrees | wind 13-16 MPH | intermittent light rain

Weather aside, I liked this race. I knew that rain was a possibility, but I was still surprised to see it when I opened my garage door to leave. Since I already had my shoes on, I decided against going back inside to get my jacket. I figured that the clothes I had with me would probably be sufficient.

The rain was light but steady as I headed over to the site. It let up by the time I arrived, however. There wasn't much of a line for packet pickup, so I got my number pretty quickly. They were out of my shirt size (a dry-release short sleeved shirt), but they promised they'd mail me one if I gave them my address. I thought that was a nice way to handle things, as opposed to just offering another size.

It started raining again (lightly) around the start of the race, but it didn't last very long. I spotted a woman I recognized from other races as someone I'd like to keep up with, and ran kind of near her for the first mile. However, during the second mile, I overheard her telling a friend that she had a cold and was just out for a training run. I decided that meant I probably needed to pick it up, which was reinforced when I saw my slower split.

After that, I pretty much just focused on running strong and passing people I knew had started too quickly. Right before the turnaround, I came up behind 2 women. I passed them both, but then one of them kind of came with me. We ended up taking turns passing each other for the next few miles. I'd get ahead on the hills, then she'd get ahead on the flats. It was great having another woman to directly compete with. I don't remember when I finally got ahead of her, but I continued to push so as not to get passed again.

The last mile features a long straightaway before making a hard turn to the finish. As I was running up the straightaway, I could see someone behind me with my peripheral vision. I thought it might be the other woman, so I kept picking up my speed (which made me feel kind of nauseated). I didn't want to lose the time it would take to actually turn around and confirm if it was her. When we made the hard turn, someone called out to the person behind me - it was a man. Ha! Anyway, I still didn't want to get passed right at the finish, and I did manage to hold him off.

Right past the finish line, they had a tent set up with the refreshments. I was glad to not have to wander too far to get some Gatorade. I was cold, so I ran a mini-cooldown to my car and back to pick up my sweats. (I had run in shorts and a long sleeve shirt). Once I had my warm clothes back on (and soaked shoes off), I went to get some food. It was good - fruit, some kind of bagel/muffin thing and cookies.

I had counted the women ahead of me at the turnaround, so I knew I was the 7th female to finish. I thought that meant I had a good chance of placing in my age group, so I wanted to stay for the awards. I had to head back to my car to get a sweatshirt, though, because I was really cold. I saw the 5K results, and then found out from the RD that they were going to have to mail the awards. The software had a glitch where they wouldn't be able to print any results until the last person finished. He didn't want to make everyone wait in the cold (and it had started raining again).

It turns out that only 2 of the women ahead of me weren't in my age group, so I finished 5th in the AG. Oh well. Still a decent race performance, especially with the (mostly) negative splits.

Splits:
1 | 7:47
2 | 7:57 | 15:45
3 | 7:42 | 23:27
4 | 7:45 | 31:12
5 | 7:39 | 38:52
6 | 7:35 | 46:27
7 | 7:37 | 54:05
8 | 7:41 | 61:47
9 | 7:29 | 69:16
-----------------
15K | 1:11:30

5K splits:
24:19
23:44 | 48:03
23:27 | 71:30
7th OA Female
5th 20-29F