This Friday marked my sixth weekend in a row of racing and my third Friday heading
over to Crystal City after work for the Pacers 5K Friday series. I got there early again to
help out with bib pick-up before the race and was happy for another night of my favorite
race weather. It was warm and sunny, but not too hot.

Sporting my new Newtons that I bought last week (after just a week of running in them,
I’m already in love!) I didn’t need a test pair from the Shoe Lab this week, but did get a
cool free tee when I stopped by to say hi after the race! Race shirts for series entrants
were also available this week. I’m a fan of this year’s design. Pics below.

It was my slowest race of the series, but still almost a full minute faster than I was
running 5Ks last year, so I was feeling pretty good after the race. My 21:51 finish was
good for 136th of 1,381 overall, 20th of 724 females and 14th out 336 in my age group.

Last week I did a good job of keeping a steady pace, but after getting caught weaving in
and out a little bit at the start, I started pushing the pace thinking I had to make up time
and ended up hitting the first mile mark in 6:40. I wasn’t able to maintain that however,
running my second mile in 7:03 and the third in 7-flat. With just one week left, I’m hoping
for another good outing next weekend.

I followed Friday’s race up with a long run Saturday morning with the DC Road Runners
who I ran with for the first time last week. Getting up by 7:30 on a Saturday might be
normal for a lot of people, but is no small task for me, so I was pumped I was able to get
myself up again and out the door in time to run with the group.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, running with a group really helps me pick up the
pace and push myself to run faster. One of the other cool things is learning new routes
I had never ventured on before. The downside I learned this week is that there are a
whole bunch of people around to see when you take a spill along a trail. Yea… that
happened. On the plus side, I wasn’t hurt at all – except for maybe a bruised ego!