The Alaska Heart Run Recap

The Alaska Heart Run was today. I haven’t done this race in years mainly because it is a 5K. Those races are sprints which I hate. I like longer distances where I can get set in my pace and just cruise to the finish. But I am doing these races anyway to get back into the racing mode. And today, even though I wasn’t that fast, it felt like a sprint.

I did a 1 mile warm-up prior to the race. I realized after that warm-up that I was way overdressed. It was 38 degrees when I left my house this morning. I did bring a lighter running shirt, but I didn’t feel like I had time to go change. I timed my warm-up  so that I could get a quick potty break in and stretch a little. And the timing was almost perfect – to the point that I started stressing a little.

I was standing in line at the port-a- potties when the announcement of 5 minutes til start was made. Yikes! I stood there trying to stretch a little while waiting and at the same time, trying to figure out if I should just leave now so that I don’t miss the start of the race. At four minutes there were 2 guys and 1 girl in front of me. I figured the guys would go pretty fast so I decided to wait. When I came out they were announcing 1:30 to start time. I jogged over to the start in rhythm to the sound of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” blaring from the speakers and took a spot close to the front with plenty of time remaining – Whew!

I definitely ran faster than what I have trained for, but I just wanted to see what I could do. The course has a couple of gradual inclines and I was really huffing and puffing up those hills. But at other times I felt like I was cruising along without too hard of an effort but hard enough. When I rounded the last corner to the finish, I saw that the time was 24:34. I really put it in gear to the finish to see if I could break 25 minutes. Its amazing to me how you feel like you couldn’t give any more, but then something like a time goal can trigger you to run even faster. It wasn’t fast enough. My time was 25:16. I’ll take that along with the 1st place finish for my age group. I didn’t even stay for the award ceremonies because I wasn’t even thinking I would have placed in any category. So way cool 🙂

My husband was out of town but my daughter and grandkids were at the finish which was a nice surprise.

 

Madelyn ran a nice easy cool down around the parking lot with me. She did not want her picture taken so I’m sharing this cool photo of her not wanting to come off the Skinny Raven Mini Track a couple of days ago.

We all went out for a big breakfast afterward. For some reason I think I can just pig out after an effort like this yet it was only a 5k, and I only burned 348 calories! Pigged out anyway at our local Bear Tooth. It was sooo good!

What a great day of running, racing and fun!