OUC 5k Race Recap

First things First - Since I know all ya'll cared about from my last post was the Garmin situation; I'd like you to meet "Captain Bluebear" my "new" Garmin Forerunner 205. He is sleek grey, silver & blue and had his maiden voyage upon my wrist as MY Garmin for the race on Saturday. I think he's pretty damn sexy if not a little heavy, we're still getting used to each other, but I have high hopes. He got on my case when I tried to locate satellites; he asked me if he had traveled hundred's of miles since his last use.... Why yes he had... smart little thing this guy is, I might have to keep my eye on his attitude though.

Question: If you are given a previously owned Garmin are you allowed to rename it or must you keep it's original name?

"Captain Bluebear"

Anyway...

Pre-Race - Orlando had a particularly craptastic weather forecast for this past weekend: Rain, Rain & more Rain. Ya'll know I just luv me some Rain. NOT! (Oh yes I just said NOT!) So on Friday night rather than stick to my strict O.C.D. guidelines of pre-race rituals I said to h*ll with it and did what I want! I ate cheese fries, steak teriyaki sticks & candy. I also stayed up way too late. I figured why not? I was going to suck in the rain anyway...

Up bright & early Saturday morning I looked outside to find an overcast & chilly morning - 48 degrees!!! (Chilly for Florida, don't forget we're sissies down here!) We geared up and headed over to Lake Eola to the start where I was forced to warm-up. Yeah that's right I usually don't warm up before a race. I stretch out of course and maybe I do some jumping up and down but warming-up? Notsomuch. But my pacer wanted to warm-up so I proceeded to emulate a bit of Pheobe running. Oh yes, it was that bad. LOL!

Just before we lined up to start we ran into Robin who had braved the conditions to come out and cheer us on! Thank you so much girl! Gotta love the never ending support the running/blogging community provides! After a bit of chit-chat & a few pre-race pics it was game on...


The Race - Can I just say I forgot how fast a 5k is? Seriously... The horn blew and I felt like I was done in a matter of minutes. My only goal was to out run the rain that threatened to unleash upon us at any minute and I successfully completed that task without a moment to spare. But back to the race...

Moments after the horn blew I realized I had forgotten to start Captain Bluebear so I quickly hit "start." (What is with me and forgetting to hit start lately?!) Any way, so there I am running along feeling S-L-O-W as can be but not a soul is passing me and ahead of me I can still see the speedies... Hmmm I think... I wonder how fast I'm going anyway? So the thought occurs to me that I can check... So I glance down at Captain Bluebear and see a 7:05! Holy Sh*t! No way?!?!? Seriously!?!?! Ya'll don't understand, I was exhausted and my legs were shot from hills & pace work earlier in the week! So I just keep running along stunned in disbelief. As I continued only about 2 guys passed me and one girl that I had been running neck and neck with but other than that, nada. I looked down a few times, always to the amazement of a maintained 7:xx pace and once I even saw a 6:37!!! Where the eff did that come from?!?!? As I rounded out that final mile I looked one last time and saw I had slowed to 8:05 so I picked it up and brought it in the final stretch as hard as I could muster. My pacer jumped in with me right before the 3 mile mark after having already finished and cheered me on as I sped towards the finish line. (Which made me realize why Robin had wanted me to shut up at the Celebration Founders Day 10k when I had jumped in with her! LOL!)

Course Record (2008): 26:32 / 8:32 Pace
2nd in Age Division / 37th Female Overall

Final Chip Time (2009): 23:37 / 7:36 Pace
1st in Age Division / 6th Female Overall
COURSE PR!!! Hello Speedy Legs!

Post Race - Promptly after finishing it started to rain. Robin took a few pics for us before heading back in to dry land, we ran into a few friends as we grabbed some refreshments and I received my first ever post race kiss...

*le sigh*

Post Race Thoughts - This is my second time running the OUC 5k; it's a flat & fast course that starts and ends at Lake Eola and runs through the surrounding Thorton Park area. Besides the start/finish downtown, the course is mostly residential. (I for one could live without the brick paver portions. OUCH!) The 5k starts about 15 minutes after the Half Marathon so there's no confusion, which I really like, and it's very well organized just like all Track Shack events.

That's it for now, weekend recap to come and I've got a LOT of blog reading to catch up on... I hope ya'll had as fantabulous of a weekend as I did and I hope all my CIM'ers ran excellent races!