May 26, 2015

Laguna Hills Memorial Day 5K Recap

Another solo race –> another race recap with no photos. Sorry about that – my race photographer (aka Henri) was at his other job yesterday… 😉 haha

The Laguna Hills Memorial Day 5K (10K and Half) started at 7AM so yesterday I woke up at 4:45, got ready, ate a quick breakfast and was out the door by 5:15! I got to the race around 6:00 and hit up the porta potty lines before I started my 1.5 mile warm-up + pre-race skips and strides. Around 6:50 the race announcer asked everyone to started heading into the corral so I got in one last strides and hopped in as close to the front as I could.

After a speaker from the battalion that the race supports (The United States Marine Corps Dark Horse Battalion), the National Anthem and a few words from the race director on the course – we were off!!!

I hadn’t really looked at the course map or elevation chart but a few people that I knew told me that it was pretty hilly. Luckily – after the fact I found out that they were talking about the half marathon and the 5K was actually relatively flat.

I felt reallllly good at the beginning (but isn’t that how it always goes??) and did my best to stick with the second group of top men who were mostly high school kids. Because I hung on to the back of the group I went a little too fast and hit the mile marker at 5:25.

The second mile was slightly uphill the whole way and by this point the men had started to pull away. I was, as always, in no man’s land! I chugged my way up the hill as best I could and even caught a few younger boys that had gone out to fast. My main focus was to hold on in the middle mile – settle into the pace that I was supposed to be running, and set myself up for a strong effort on the decline in mile 3. I hit the 2 mile marker with a split of 5:44 (goal pace was 5:40).

Mile 3 is where I remembered that running 5K’s HURTS! For me marathon training and racing is usually more about training to be tired and of course marathons hurt but in the 5K it’s a totally different pain. Lungs burning, calves tight, feel like I’m going to throw up kind of pain – and for some strange reason I prefer that over the slowwww pain of the marathon. Right at the beginning of the 3rd mile one of the pace bikes found me and biked a little in front of me. It was exactly what I needed in that moment – I just focused on the biker’s back and kept pushing as much as I could.

The last .6 miles are downhill which was a great way to finish off the race! The 3rd mile marker was near the bottom of the hill and as I hit “lap” on my watch I saw 5:43 and knew that with my first mile averaged in I was going to be below my goal of 17:30!

As we came down to the final turn into the park the biker said “Congrats!” and peeled off to the side. I kicked it into high gear when I saw that the clock said 17:20 as I was approaching.

5 seconds later I cross the finish line as the 1st lady and a post collegiate PR of 17:25 (fastest since college besides that was 17:48)!!!!!

In the finish shoot I met the gal that came in second place and we chatted for a few minutes. After I caught my breath and inhaled the orange slices and banana that the volunteers had handed me we headed out for a 2.5 mile cool-down together on the trails connected to the park and cheered on the other runners in the 10K and half marathon.

After our cool-down we explored the expo a little bit and may or may not have eaten some sugar cookies from Corner Bakery. 😉 I started to get pretty chilly (it was overcast and a little drizzly) so I grabbed my beer mug & Ruby’s gift card, said goodbye to my new running buddy, and hopped on a shuttle back to my car.