OK, final overdue race recap is here! I’ve frequently talked about my love for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler on the blog, and this year was no different except that I opted for the 5k instead of the 10 miler.

It took me until Saturday night to make the final decision to switch to the 5k. Could I run 10 miles? Of course. Would it be a lot slower than my previous two years of finish times? Absolutely. Now I know that’s a dumb reason not to do a race, but I knew it would bug me and I just wouldn’t enjoy the race as much. It turned out to be a great decision. I loved the 5k course and I even showed a little speed compared to my runs of late this year giving me a good push to getting back into things and picking up the pace in my training runs going forward. It also didn’t hurt that the start time was about an hour and a half later than the 10 miler – yay for sleep!

Things kicked off on Saturday with a Oiselle meet up at Vapiano in D.C. It’s always so fun to get together with these girls!

Oiselle Team & Friends

On Sunday morning, Ian and I were up early and off to the metro. We ended up running into my Oiselle teammate Prianka at the Smithsonian stop, which was pretty amusing since I also ran into her randomly on the metro before the Marine Corps Marathon last fall. Almost as if we planned it, we walked by the start/finish area for the 10 Miler just as the lead women ran by. Boy can they fly, and yet make it look so easy.

We made our way to the 5k start area. I headed off for a quick warm-up and Prianka went to meet a friend she was going to pace for the race. I again sported my Oiselle shimmel tank and fresh green shorts for the race. Somehow I greatly underestimated how chilly it was going to be out. Luckily I had arm warmers and calf sleeves on as well to give me a little extra warmth.

Waiting at the start line was brutal. I was absolutely freezing. As you can tell by the picture below I appear to be the only one who didn’t get the memo about the temperature. Fortunately I warmed up really quickly and felt fine by about half mile in.

Missed the memo on how chilly it would be!

I loved this 5k course. I busted out my Newton flats for the first time in a longtime and they felt so light on my feet. Love that feeling! We started off heading down Independence Ave. on a slight decline before a quick right and left turn taking us over Memorial Bridge.

I really felt good and started to get into a groove. After crossing over the bridge, through the traffic circle and a bit closer to the entrance to Arlington Cemetery we made the turnaround to retrace our steps back to the finish. Even with the slight incline back to the finish line where we started I still ran each mile increasingly faster.

My 25:20 finish time was no where near my PR, but I was really happy with it and am excited to start getting my speed back over the next few months here as I get running more and start integrating speed workouts back into my training. It was also good enough to put me in 74th place overall out of 2,067, 25th out of 1,519 women and 6th out of 364 in my age group.

This little guy was cheering on runners from the sideline. I think Ian really needs to follow through on his idea of starting a Tumblr site featuring race dogs!

I was able to really quickly navigate through the finish area and make it back to where Ian was watching from in time to see Prianka run to the finish as well!

Then we decided to take a shot at heading up to the 10 Miler finish to see if my brother’s fiancee and her sister had finished yet. With so many people in that race we didn’t think we’d have a great shot, especially since we didn’t even know what corral they had started in. As we walked near the finish line I somehow spotted my brother waiting on the sidelines, and we were able to grab a spot and catch Adrienne and Courtney on their way to the finish line!

We wrapped up a great morning with breakfast at Bob & Edith’s Diner on Columbia Pike in Arlington. If you live around here and haven’t been there yet, you should go! Yet another successful Cherry Blossom in the books!