On May 16, I ran my second 5K race. This one was extra fun because not only did my good friend Ann run it, but John was also home from Iraq to join in the excitement.

John’s friend Kevin was also running the 5k, and I know that John really wanted to compete with him (and leave him in his dust), but he instead opted to run with me to help me push myself. That’s love. :)

When we woke up that morning, we were bummed to hear a lot of rain on our roof. I was afraid that we were in for a very wet run, but luckily that turned out to not be the case. The rain held off for the rest of the morning, and we instead had a sunny and humid race, with temperatures were somewhere in the 70’s.

My goal for this race was to try to hit 10 minute miles (or 31:06 overall). Unfortunately, that did not happen. My Nike+ipod crapped out in the middle of the run and lost my stats (aaarrgh!), but according to John’s Garmin watch,  I ended up with a 32:28 time for 3.13 miles, or a 10:22 pace.

It was seemingly the same pace as my last race, but in reality I think I ran it faster. Ann said that the other race we ran showed up on her Garmin watch as only 3 miles instead of 3.11. So my speed there was a little overinflated.

I was bummed to not accomplish my goal, but I still had fun. It was great to have John there to encourage me along the way.

During this race, I was kind of having a rough time (I don’t think I ate or drank enough before, I was nervous). But I was amazed to find myself doing better than lots of people around us. We even passed a group of Marines! (Granted, they were running in formation and in “boots and utes”, but still.) There were lots of people taking walking breaks. According to the race website, I placed 30th in my division (females 20-29), out of 54. The division’s mean time was 33:23. That’s one slow race…who would ever think I would be better than average?!

Our next event is coming up on May 30. It’s a Sprint Triathlon Relay at Cherry Point. John is swimming, Ann is biking, and I am running. I can’t wait!