thirty-six

This weekend I turned

The plan was to run the Yiasou Greek Festival 5K at 7:30 am on Saturday (my birthday). We did the same thing for my 30th. The great thing about this race is it is completely flat, winding through beautiful neighborhoods with old homes. In your race packet, you also get 2 tickets to the Greek Festival in Charlotte in September. This is one of my favorite races! Now, it's a BIG race...so I don't try to compete for placement in my age group. The people that win run it under 20 minutes. My goal really was to finish strong, possibly under 25 minutes.

My friends Becky and Denise registered for it with me, and the plan was to meet our almost 9 month pregnant friend Abby at Tupelo Honey afterward for brunch. Well, to my delight, Sheila decided to spectate and join us for brunch! What a great birthday treat! I'm always shocked by how nervous I get before a race, especially one where I don't really feel the need to compete. Both Becky and I were very nervous this morning for some reason.

Here are a few "befores":

  

Race begins pretty much on time, and I step off to the side of the course so I'm not 1) in the way and can 2) pass people. For the entire first mile, I was passing people left and right. Mainly right because I was on the side of the road. It felt good. At 1 mile, my Nike watch showed a pace under 8:00 and I was feeling great! The 2nd mile wasn't quite as easy, my breathing started to quicken, but I was again under 8:00 at the mile marker. Now mile 3 was hard. I was breathing fiercly and loudly. At one point, this young guy and I were pretty neck-and-neck. I felt bad for how loud I was so I had to turn to him and apologize, which made me more winded. The last 0.5 mile people started passing me. I just couldn't quite keep the pace at the end. But I did finish strong, and under 25:00!!! My Nike watch said I ran 3.13 (which is slightly over a 5K). I attribute this to running the outside of the street instead of down the middle. It was also recorded on my watch that this was not only my fastest 5K, but fastest 1K and fastest mile:

My watch time for the actual 5K distance was 24:17! Woot woot! And here's our "after":

To give you some idea of how proud I am of myself...my very 1st 5K ever (long time ago) I ran in 35:17. So I have knocked 11 minutes off! I think that's pretty phenomenal. Becky, our gazelle friend, ran it under 22:00 I do believe. Maybe under 21:00. So we stayed for awards just in case. But like I said, all the winners were under 20:00. However, it's a good thing we stayed, they gave me a $20 Run For Your Life gift certificate because it was my birthday :)

Walked right into Tupelo Honey after the race, which was fantastic because I was anticipating a long wait. Another surprise, Pat and the boys joined us for brunch about halfway through. It was a mouth watering meal, as always. Here's our last pic before Abby's baby arrives (Finn told her to name him "Nagger Dollar Dobs").

The rest of the day was quiet. We had cake for lunch as a family of four at home, I opened some gifts, we all took a LONG nap, then headed to Brixx and Kilwins to end the day.

Today (Sunday), I ran 11 miles. It wasn't as fast as last weekend's 10 miles, but I'm 1 long practice run away from my next Half. Hope your weekend was great, as well!

Yours,