Where in the World is Carolina Sandiego...

In just this year I have traveled out of the country four times: Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Peru, and most recently, El Salvador. So I apologize for not having had a second to update the blog since I was working out of the country. My flight to El Salvador left Sunday at 5 am (meaning I arrived at Dulles at around 3 am) and returned Saturday morning at around 2 am, and the time in between, I was working... a lot.

But before I left, I did my first stand-alone 5k race, the Sister Cities International Race for Peace in Foggy Bottom. So here is my race report... 


Prep: I received a lot of helpful advice from Andy since he has been key in encouraging me to try to get faster and comes from a running background. He gave me some good advice for my pacing, for setting up different data fields on my garmin watch (using average pace per 1mile lap instead of speed), what to eat, how to warm up, etc. I have only done 5ks at part of the end of Sprint Triathlon... or well the Warrior Dash too... but that doesn't really count, so I didn't know what my speed could be if I were just running. I decided to be a bit conservative and shoot for a goal of sub-30 minutes. 


Pre-Race: Took the metro over to Foggy Bottom and enjoyed how much less stressful pre race for running races are than triathlons. Less gear, less set up, no waves, no transition area - and if I didn't have brunch plans afterwards, then I wouldn't have even needed the big backpack I took so I could have a change of clothes. I did about a mile warm up trying to make sure I went slow. I am trying to make a very conscious effort to better pace myself and go slow when I need to go slow so I don't burn out once I need to go fast. 


Race: Just after 9 am, the race took off. I positioned myself mid way back since I know I am slow, and again, I was making a concerted effort to watch my pace. The course was a weird one as you can see from the map. Several twists and turns and pretty much running around a fork for part of it - down a block, turn, back up the block, down the next block, back up that block, then down the next block and back up. The first mile was overall downhill, but I was trying to keep a bit slow despite the adrenaline from starting the race and the downhills. Around the end of that mile I had synced up with a girl going about the same pace, and she said something about how she was glad I did and how I was suppose to help make sure she didn't stop running. But I felt bad because I knew I was trying to run my own race and had my own goals in mind, so if I had to, I was gonna drop her... which I did about a quarter miler into mile two in the midst of the forking section the race. Andy's advice was very helpful here as average pace turned out to be a much better tool to keep track of my speed. I kept checking to make sure I was at the very least going faster than 9:40 miles, even though the first one was in 9:20. The third mile had some uphills (had to go back up from the downhills from the first mile), so I felt my heart rate creeping up and my average pace falling a bit. That last mile felt a bit long because of the uphill, meaning I definitely need to incorporate hill repeats in my workouts now too. Once I could see the finish line, I took off sprinting. That last "lap" (which wasn't a mile lap but just the .1 or whatever left) had an average pace of like 7:02! At the overall clock, I knew I was under 30 minutes, and my garmin had me around 29:19.

Official Results: My actual official time was actually 29:07! Ohhh, the fury, if I had known more precisely that I was 8 seconds off of sub 29, I would have started sprinting sooner! But I was almost in the top third for my gender and division, not too shabby.

Name	State	Div	ChipTime	ClockTime	Average Pace	Overall	SexPl	DivPl
CM	VA	F2529	29:07	29:33	9:23	232/465	111/302	34/95

Lessons Learned: Holy crap my hands were numb! It was a bit chilly that morning, especially in the shade, and even though I felt comfortable running in shorts and a T-shirt I also learned I need to buy some gloves for running because I could barely type out a text message after the race. Need to continue to work on pacing myself and need to incorporate hill repeats. 


Next goal is going to be sub hour 10k in December. 


Unfortunately I have to catch up a bit after the race training-wise. While away, I swam a bit, mostly to loosen up, at the hotel pool while in El Salvador, and ran 3 miles on a treadmill doing intervals again, in a bit over 30 minutes. This weekend was a bit of madness between the rally and halloween (and I LOOOVE halloween) so I didn't get any good workouts done. 


But yesterday, I started the the 100 push up challenge and the 200 sit up challenge because, as Amanda so eloquently stated, "for some reason, a boat load of us tend to do what Karen tells us". So those updates will now be included in my blog in addition to the overall training.