Race Recap: Love the Run You're With 5K

Today was the coldest day of the year. So of course it was the day of my first race of 2012. 

I woke up at 7 am and had some oatmeal, I figured since it was two hours till race time I would eat something substantial. I then spent a good 30 minutes trying to decide what I should be wearing and checking the forecast. It didn't matter how many times I checked, it was in the 20s. So I decided to layer. Shorts, pants, tank, long sleeve, windbreaker, and gloves. I also threw on a winter coat for the pre/post run.

We had a bit of snow here on Saturday and on my walk to the Metro I noticed several spots of black ice... not good for running.

Riding the metro prerace

The race started at the shops at Pentagon City, a fairly quick metro ride away. It turned out to be a great location as there were plenty of spots to duck inside and keep warm (and nice restrooms!). The race route was heavily salted, which made for a rough surface, but also kept me from falling on ice, so that was a plus. 

Since the race was Valentine's Day themed when registering one had to register as either:

Single- green bib

It's complicated- yellow bib

In a relationship- red bib

SINGLE

The race swag was perfect for the weather, a fleece blanket. Many people were wrapped up in theirs on their way home.

Monkeys in love

 The race started right at 9. There were no pace groups and most people looked pretty athletic so I just chose a spot in the middle back. It turned out I had a pretty good spot. I had to do a little dodging, but not much.

The course was an out and back. Right off the bat we ran up a huge hill, but then had some gradual down hill for awhile. My first and last mile were both 9:03, while my second mile was the slowest at 9:07. As I was going back up that gradual hill in the third mile a girl was cheering. She said "No regrets! Pass 5 people on the downhill!" for some reason this hit me and I put it in the next gear and passed ten people on the rest of the uphill. Take that uphill! I passed a few more on the downhill, but took it semi carefully with the road conditions. As soon as we turned the corner we could see the finish line and got a huge boost from a frigid wind to our backs. When I saw the official race time hadn't hit 29 yet, I pushed as hard as I could and finished in 28:28! A new PR for me.

 And not so bad overall:

But my finishing photo is bad, very, very, very bad:

I hope I didn't look like this the whole race

I skipped the post race free beer and karaoke for a hot shower and nap.