I got to the zoo early and picked up my packet. I had bib number 1412, but I saw bibs as high as 2200, so that's at least how many participants there were in the 5K. And I got an awesome t-shirt too.
I met up with my best friend, Cinderella, who had agreed to do this with me. She got to the zoo a little late and had to park on a side street b/c they were already closing roads. And then we headed towards the starting line.
We were still 10 or 15 minutes early, so we stood around and people watched.
Finally, the whistle was blown and we started moving. Because of all the people, the first mile was really clogged and it bottle-necked in a couple of places, really slowing our pace down. But we still did that first mile in about 19 minutes, including the time it took before we crossed the start line.
I felt like the second mile was the longest. It drug on forever. Cinderella had shoe problems and we had to stop. We ran into two old friends and slowed our pace to chat for a bit. And we slowed to pick up some water. It was a good mile but a slow one. But still we finished it in 17 minutes.
The last 1.1 miles was the one that was technically "through the zoo." It felt like a breeze because I'm so familiar with the layout of the zoo, I was able to tell myself how much farther we had to go. I would say in my head, "We've just got to go past the monkeys, then the elephants, then the giraffes and the carousel and we'll be to the finish." It was really motivating and made it feel like it was going by really fast. Although going up the hill by the gorillas almost did me in.
Finally, the finish line was in sight. I asked Cinderella if she wanted to jog the last little bit. She responded by picking up the pace, while saying, "The real answer is no." But we pushed through and ran the last little bit to the end, finishing just as the timer flipped to 52 minutes. We had done the last 1.1 miles in 16 minutes, a new best for us.
According to the "official" race results (there was a computer chip thing in my bib, since with so many people, it can take a while to cross the finish line) we finished in 49 minutes and 40 seconds. 1683 out of 2204 participants. There were 35 people in our age group (25-29 female) that finished after us. But there were 3 females over the age of 70 that finished before me (that kind of stings).
How does it feel? I feel more confident now in my abilities. I feel like I want to keep going and do more.
Cinderella has agreed to do this with me on a monthly basis. So right now we're talking about doing one June 23rd. It's great motivation to keep training and keep going. It's only 40 days away.
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