Lake Houston 5k - Race Report

Holy cow!  Did I say race report???  Say it ain't so!

Racing in August in Southeast Texas is not always fun.  Despite the heat & humidity, I managed to have a little fun this past weekend at the Lake Houston 5k.

My expectations were appropriately managed going into this race.  I am not training how I used to and knew I wouldn’t be lighting too much on fire.  With it being August, I also knew full well I would not have a PR and I would certainly not touch my January 5k time and be under 25 minutes.  I was TOTALLY ok with that. 

Keith joined me at this race even though I told him he didn’t have to.  I wasn’t able to pick up my packet the day before because I had to work so we needed to arrive early to grab my packet.  We had about an hour to spare before it was time for the 5k start so we walked around and did a little people watching and then I warmed up for the race.  

There’s not too much to report given this was such a short race.  The 10k group went out 30 minutes before us so by the time we started, the speedy runners were on their way back.  I immediately thought about how happy I was NOT to be running the 10k.  I decided I was going to be smart and not get too crazy so I went out fast but not too fast.  There is no doubt I was holding back and not putting the pedal to the metal.  I started the race already sweaty thanks to my warm up so I wasn’t surprised that I was a Sweaty Betty before mile 1.  I wasn’t breathing too hard and everything felt good so I tried to just hold the pace I was at.  This was an out & back course so pretty soon, I saw the front 5k runners and knew I would get to turn around soon too.  Thank goodness!  As I hit the u-turn, I glanced at my watch and knew I was doing just fine.  I wanted to be under 30 minutes and that wasn’t looking to be a problem.  

I hit the mile 2 marker and decided to walk through it and get some water.  I dumped some on my head and then drank the other. I probably walked longer than I should’ve or needed too but I had started to hear some ringing in my ears and thought maybe I should just dial it back.  I started up again b/c come on, there’s only a mile left and I needed to not be a baby.  Before I knew it, I was hitting the bridge over Lake Houston and could see the finish line.  Man, I would like to be under 28 minutes so I picked it up but knew I didn’t have enough time left to shave off much time.  I finished nice and hard and felt good about my time.  I knew it wasn’t going to be good enough for a podium place but decided to wait around anyway. 

28:18 was good for 7^th in a field of 71 which put me in the top 9.9% of my age group.  I was very happy about that and couldn’t complain one bit!  Out of all females, I was 27 out of 350ish which was good for top 7.8%.  Wowza!!!!   The goal of this race was to kind of give me a kick in the pants and get my competitive juices flowing again.  It felt wonderful to be out there and I really enjoyed pushing myself if only a little bit. Mission accomplished!

So from here, I’ve got Austin 70.3 8 weeks from this coming Saturday with 10 for Texas before then.  Time to buckle down and get moving!

Happy training!

Pre race smiles for the future Mr. & Mrs.  :)

Just trucking' along!

All smiles on the way home!