Better late than never, here are my Awesomesauce and Five Star NTP race experiences from Memorial Day weekend. I hope everyone has enjoyed their 4th of July holiday. I’ve been busy and sick so this post comes a bit…late! As a military brat and former Navy Officer in the Reserves, my thoughts are with all the families who’ve lost loved ones while serving our country always!
The Memorial weekend of races was a fun but tough one! I ran a half marathon the day before Memorial Day and a 5K on Memorial Day! Here’s what I experienced!
5/27/18 Awesomesauce Sweet Southern Discomfort
I ran the TN leg of this southern series that offered distances from 5k-ultra marathon! I ran the half marathon distance. The race was located in East Ridge at Camp Jordan Park, which is minutes away from Chattanooga.
This location has a pavilion with restrooms, which is awesome because I HATE port-a-potties! Unfortunately, you know how long the lines are for ladies rooms! This was no exception. There were only 2 stalls available so some of us spent several minutes waiting to use the restroom as the race started! Luckily, this was a small, low key race so the race director gave the tardy “ladies line” group our very own start time and said she’ll make adjustments.
Course: The race was a looped course and felt mostly flat. Half marathoners had to run 5 loops. The great thing about looped courses is seeing the same runners the entire time. This race was full of friendly runners who cheered each other on by name (our bibs had our names written on them)!
Swag: Each runner received a hat, cup or water bottle (for the single race runners) and the post race food/drink spread was awesome! They offered chocolate milk at the end, along with Gatorade, water, soda, fresh fruit, pickles, candy, cookies and PB & J mini sandwiches.
Since I ran a half marathon two weeks ago, I didn’t have any goals for this race, other than to have fun! I felt better mentally and physically during this half. In fact, I didn’t take any walk breaks like I did two weeks ago! I assumed my time would have improved by a few minutes but that’s not the case. Goes to show walk breaks won’t necessarily slow you down!
Results: 2:35:32 (Garmin time), official results have not been posted yet.
5/28/18 Five Star NTP Memorial Day 5k/10k
Waking up at 5:15am a second day in a row wasn’t so bad, especially knowing I only had to run 3.1 miles today! I was familiar with the course because I ran this race last year. My goal was to beat last year’s time (2017 time was 30:55). I didn’t let the rain dampen my mood!
Course: This road race takes place on a street that’s not entirely closed down to cars, so runners had to be careful to stay within the cones. The first half of the 5K is pretty much on a downward slope which means the second half is a climb to the finish! I felt so good during the first mile that I ran a sub 9 min/mile! The upward half of the course slowed me down but I’m proud of my mental game. I had so many thoughts of walking but I didn’t back down.
Results: Gun time 28:36; Garmin & chip time 28:28. I placed 2nd in my age group; the gal who finished 1st in our age group was announced as an overall top 3 winner so the rest of us got bumped up one place for age group awards!
I was signed up for the Peachtree Road Race (I believe it’s the biggest 10K in the USA) but I deferred it until 2019 so my next race is the Big Peach Sizzler 10k! I definitely have NO PLANS to PR this year due to how my training has been going lately.
Overall, I feel accomplished for running back to back races but won’t be doing that again anytime soon!
Have you ever ran back to back races?
