The race was a blast. First actual race of any kind I'd entered since high school, and Hilary's first race EVER. Combined with the fact that it was to be my off day for training, it was a fun way to run a charity 5k together on our 5 year wedding anniversary in Savannah. Savannah is, by the way, one of the greatest coastal cities to visit I've ever seen. Go there sometime. Seriously.
Anyway, we headed out from our hotel just a shade after 7:00 for the 8:00 race. It took about 20 minutes to get out to the race site, which was a community recreation center on Wilmington Island. It was quite marshy. Not a hint of breeze, temperatures at 7:30 already above 80, and I'd guess humidity in the same range. I was sweaty. Dripping off my fingertips sweaty.
Before the Race. I'm already glistening.
We did a little jogging warmup and got ready to run. Per Hilary's wishes (and plain good sense) we started in the "middle back" of the pack. Somewhere behind the fit-looking people, but ahead of those with strollers. Hilary seemed a bit nervous, but holding it together. She just didn't want to finish last.
I shared some wisdom - mainly don't go out in a sprint for the first 1/2 mile and don't elbow your way past anyone under 12 years old. We took off and right away I could tell we were at a good place in the pack, especially for Hilary's first race. After the initial shake-out, we started picking people off bit by bit. There were some Clydesdales and some oxen who went out a little strong, and they were being decimated after the first 1/2 mile by the Woo Crew's slow-but-steady pace.
First mile came in at 9:15, and also turned us away from the sun, which was nice. We hit the aid station at half-way, and slowed down just enough to grab a shot of water and get back on pace. During this second mile, we started picking out people for Hilary to tail and then pass. First the woman in pink. She was passed. Then the woman in brown who was the only one to pass us after the first quarter mile - she got passed back.
We hit the second mile marker in about 19:00, which wasn't great - we were slow in the middle, though I'm not sure how accurate the mile markers actually were. I wanted to make sure we maintained a sub 10:00 pace to get Hilary in under her 30:00 goal.
A bit later, we passed a guy walking, who then started running with us. Very nice guy, and he had a Garmin heart rate monitor/pace watch. It knew we'd gone 2.4 miles. It also knew he'd fallen way off his 9:00 goal pace and was beeping at him incessantly. This went right along with Hilary's heart rate monitor beeping at her that her heart rate was too high. It was a chorus of beeps.
At that point, we identified the last person for Hilary to focus on - the girl ahead who had on three layers of shorts and had been walking as we neared her, but now was running again. She was still 25ish yards ahead, but I thought Hilary could catch her if we just stayed steady.
As we made the last turn and had about 100 yards into the finish, I told her to stride it out and catch that girl. Our new friend started pushing her to catch her, too! Between the two of us, Hil had little choice but to turn it on and pick up the pace. Unfortunately, weird shorts girl noticed, and also turned it up. So there they were: two girls racing hard to beat each other to the finish line at a charity 5k fun run in under 30:00. The crowd loved it, even though shorts girl held Hilary off.
So, official time of 29:26 and 29:27 for us, smack in the middle of the pack.
Post-race. More sweaty.
Very proud of #16.
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