I have several races to recap on the blog — I have been a little busy planning a wedding with my fiancé and getting married to my now-husband! Now that we are married, I’m going to go back in time a little bit to recap the several races I’ve run that I haven’t yet blogged about.
Six weeks after the Races2Run Rusty Rudder 5K, I returned to the Rusty Rudder in Dewey Beach on Aug. 22 and met up with 11:30 Club friends for the Outlet Liquors 5K. This race was run on the same course, and I hoped to beat my Rusty Rudder 5K time of 29:27, which was my fastest of the year by less than a second.
I didn’t quite beat that time, but I came close, running 29:36. I ended up with a third-place age group award for the female 35-39 age group — the first age group award I’ve earned in a while (my name doesn’t show up on the results because it was accidentally logged as someone else).
I remember it was not a great beach day, and from what I can recall (I’m trying to remember the weather from more than two months ago), it was rainy afterward and maybe before but not rainy during the actual race.
Since I’d run the course the previous month, I knew what to expect. My first mile wasn’t as fast as the previous race, but I kept the miles very consistent, with splits of 9:30, 9:37 and 9:29, with the last bit in 58 seconds (8:08 pace).
Although I was nine seconds off the previous month’s time, this is still a strong time for me, and I enjoyed spending time with the 11:30 Club. We had four members on our team, and we could have competed as an official team with five runners.
After the race, runners could enjoy beer and food.
I also tried out a new pair of the Brooks Hyperion Max 3 for the first time on race day. Of course, nobody recommends trying anything new on race day, but I figured for a 5K – a distance I’ve run countless times before — it would be OK, and it wasn’t like anything was riding on this race specifically. The shoes worked well for me! (If you’re interested in shopping, I’m a Brooks affiliate and you can shop for the Brooks Hyperion Max 4 here. I also received these shoes for free using a gear code.)
It’s now been more than two months, and I haven’t run a faster 5K since. This was my third-fastest 5K of the year and second-fastest race — I ran a fast 5K on the Ocean City Boardwalk one day.
Stay tuned to read about my next few races over the next few weeks or so while I catch up!
Splits
Mile 1: 9:30
Mile 2: 9:37
Mile 3: 9:29
Last bit (watch had .12): 58.8 (8:08 pace)
Final time: 29:36 (9:29/mile pace on watch)
