Category Archives: Races

Crystal Run 5K Friday Take 3

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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!

Run-Centric Weekend

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For anyone who knows me, it comes as no surprise that I spend a lot of my time running, talking about running or doing other running-related activities, but this weekend was a particularly run-centric weekend.

Friday night I headed out of work for week 2 of Pacer’s Crystal City 5k Friday series. I got there early to help out with packet pick-up before the race. My first stop was the shoe lab, however. After having a lot of success last week with a pair of racing flats from Newton, I planned to try out their Gravity performance trainer this week. As soon as  I laced them up I could tell these shoes felt great. They were super light, gripped my foot, but roomy around my toes, and had some great bounce to them.

The race actually started a few minutes late to accommodate the huge turn out of runners on a really beautiful Friday night. My pace was all over the map last week so I wanted to really focus on running a consistent pace and did a great job of it. I hit mile 1 in 6:54, crossed mile 2 at 13:53 and mile 3 at 20:47. My finish time of 21:29 took another 11 seconds off my PR! I finished 133 out of 1,426 overall, 23 out of 773 females and 16 out of 344 in my age group. I also walked away with my own pair of Newton Gravity’s thanks to a 10 percent onsite discount! (It doesn’t take much to talk me into buying new running gear.) I’m really excited to start logging some more miles in them.

Saturday morning I linked up with the DC Road Runners club for their weekly Saturday long run. This group meets right across the street from my apartment and I’ve been saying I was going to get myself up and run with them for years. This was the first time I actually went! I’ve been trying to make much more of an effort to run with groups since it makes training a little more fun and helps me push myself to run faster.

We ran a route that took us over Memorial Bridge, down the Mall, by Union Station and back down the other side of the Mall before running along the river and returning via 14th Street Bridge and the Mount Vernon Trail. Runs like this remind me why I love this city so much. No where else can you go for an early morning run past so many cool monuments, memorials and historical sites. I was also entertained by the set up and prep for the Cherry Blossom parade going on later that morning.

Sunday I volunteered to help with the early packet pick-up for the GW Parkway Classic 10 Miler and 5K. I’ve heard great things about this race and definitely plan to do it sometime. I helped out at the Clarendon store, and let me tell you – it took no small amount of will power to spend 5 hours in a Pacers and not spend any money. I did leave with several things on my wish list for my next visit there though!

New Kicks and a New PR to Kick Off the Friday 5Ks

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I love the Crystal City 5k Fridays race series. It’s such a fun race; is a nice, relatively flat course; and Pacers does an awesome job with it. I was able to run 3 of the Friday 5ks last year, and set my PR for the distance with a 22:50 finish.

I know I’m a cold-weather wimp, but I don’t think I’d be the only one to say the weather for most of last year’s races was not too fun. Last Friday was perfect, however. Sunny and close to 60 – I was in my element. My boyfriend was in town for the weekend too, so I was very excited he was going to get to see my race, cheer me on and take some pictures!

Pacers is doing a cool thing at the series this year called Shoe Lab where Mizuno, Newton and Brooks have test shoes you can try out for the race. After turning over my Nike’s and my ID as collateral, I had a pair of Newton’s racing flats on my feet. I’ve never worn racing flats so I couldn’t believe how light they felt.

I’ve been running hard lately and running a lot, so I hoped to set a new PR at this race with a goal of breaking 22 minutes by the end of the series. Well, I was pleasantly surprised with my performance and now have to readjust my goals to make them a little tougher as I blew away my old PR by 1:10 finishing in 21:40! Maybe it was the shoes?!

For some reason the first mile of this course always seems to take forever in my mind so I thought I’d gone out slow, but saw my watch read 6:46 at the one-mile mark. I slowed down a bit for mile two passing the marker in 14 minutes even, and picked it back up to a 7 minute pace for the third mile. The 6:59 pace is my first-ever sub-7 minute race pace!

The 21:40 finish was good enough to put me in 137th overall out of 1,253 finishers, 19th out of 652 females, and 12th out of 268 in my age group!

I’ve wanted to try out some Newtons since I went to a seminar they put on at Pacers in Clarendon last October. While I loved the speedy Newton flats, I’m going to give their regular performance trainers a test run this week since those would probably be a more practical purchase for the distances I’ll be running in training for the 2012 Marine Corps Marathon.

I’m already looking forward to this Friday’s race – such an awesome way to kick off the weekend. I’ll be volunteering at packet pick-up before the race so stop by and say hi if you’re there!

(Lots of pictures: courtesy of Ian Gallagher – check out his food blog for an entry on our post-race dinner date!)

3 Weekends – 3 Races: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Race Recap

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For the third straight weekend I found myself lacing up my shoes for a race. This past weekend was the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, which I was particularly excited for since I’ve been denied entry through the lottery system into this one for the last few years. I love any race course that lets you take in the monuments of D.C. I’ve been running a lot recently, and I run most of the route for this course a lot, so I went in feeling pretty confident.

Race Shirt and Bib

The expo was crowded even at noon on Friday and it took a little time to get through the packet pick up and t-shirt lines, but it was well organized. Unfortunately since I’d already burned through most of my lunch break time walking to the National Building Museum and waiting in line, I didn’t get to peruse the expo booths as I normally love to do and instead had to hustle back to work.

It was also one of the most crowded start lines I’ve been in, which isn’t surprising given more than 15,000 runners came out for the race and the narrow starting roads. I also might have contributed to the over-crowding by lining up in the wrong corral. I wanted to start near the 7:30 pacer and realized after a few minutes that everyone around me had gold bibs that did not match my red one. Sorry about that!

I do wish they’d let you sign up for your corral based on an expected finish time rather than your previous best 10 miler though. While I understand this keeps people from putting a much better time than they could ever run, I’ve only run one other 10 miler – this one in fact – that I hadn’t trained for, so the time didn’t really reflect my training for this race. Regardless, the start went off without a hitch for me, and all the people squished in there helped keep me warm while waiting for the start.

It was a little chilly at the start and a bit overcast, but overall, it was pretty perfect weather for racing. I headed out with the 7:30 pacer as the course started near the National Monument and headed down the Mall past the Lincoln Memorial and over the Memorial Bridge. We hit the 1-mile mark in about 7:20 so I’m not sure why, but our pacer either decided hey, maybe he could win this race, or that we were just much too slow for him to pace and took off. I kept him in my sight for a little bit, but as we came back over the bridge and into the out and back on Rock Creek Parkway I lost him for good.

Cherry Blossom Race

I felt great as the race continued and hit the 5 mile mark in 37:15. Hains Point got the best of me though and slowed me down a little. I struggled during the Hains Point stretch at last year’s Marine Corps Marathon too, so clearly I need to get out and practice on it some more before this year’s MCM.  It’s a tough stretch, usually pretty windy as it’s a wide open space along the water. There is very little crowd support here too, although I did appreciate the guy who set up the free beer and oreos table – it gave me a good, much-needed laugh. I was a little disappointed in the crowd support (other than the volunteers who were stationed at certain points to cheer on runners) throughout the race as well. There was one stretch I think around mile 6 that had a ton of people, but they were dead silent. Runners were actually yelling things trying to get the crowd excited.

I didn’t grab water at the last two water stops thinking it was a short enough race that I didn’t need anymore. This might have been a mistake as I got an awful side-stitch cramp just after mile 8. I was able to fight through it slowing down a tad, but was thankful this wasn’t a longer race or it could have really hurt my chances.

The finish line crowd was much more energetic and the slight downhill at the end made for a good final kick into the finish line. I crossed the line at 1:16:41 – obviously a PR for this distance since I’d only run it once before. The 7:40 pace was by far the best pace I’ve kept up for any longer-distance before too, so I felt great about it. All of my races and training this year are geared around improving my time at the Marine Corps Marathon this October. I can feel that my fitness level keeps getting better and seeing this kind of progress gives me a great confidence boost.

Next up is the Pacers Crystal City 5k Friday series so I can work on my speed (and have some fun too since I love these races)!

Race Recap: Run Rogue 5k – Running for a Cause

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This Saturday I got myself up bright and early to run in the Run Rogue 5k in Fairfax. I found out about it on Facebook just a week and a half before the race, but once I learned what it was all about, I couldn’t resist signing up. This was the inaugural Run Rogue 5k race, and it was created by the Rogue Racers to honor two of their athletes who are battling brain and breast cancer. The proceeds went to Life With Cancer and the National Brain Tumor Society.

The day I found out about this race my aunt was undergoing surgery to remove two brain tumors, and it’s been just over a year since my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, which thankfully they caught at a very early stage and were able to treat. I was excited for the chance to give to these causes and help out in someway in the fight against cancer.

On race morning, I grabbed a Zipcar and zipped out to Fairfax. It was a bit overcast, but the rain managed to hold off. The start line was a bit crowded, but as the announcer aptly reminded us all – this race wasn’t an Olympic Qualifier, so be careful and have fun. After getting through a slow (well, slow for a 5k) first mile in about 7:45, I was able to pick up the pace for the next 2.1 and finish in 23:26.

It wasn’t my best time, but that’s not what this race was about and it was still a great way to start a Saturday morning! I stayed to hang around the finish line for awhile, and was able to see a lot of cancer survivors (wearing special shirts so you could spot them) cross the line. It was a really inspiring and awesome sight. I’m glad I got to be a part of it and will definitely go back next year!

I was hoping to test my luck in the post-race raffle, but as it started to get a little chillier the Fairfax Wegmans was calling my name. I took advantage of having the car for the morning and headed over to Wegmans to indulge in my favorite chicken finger sub!

Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon: Exceeding Expectations

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I ran the Rock ‘n Roll half marathon last weekend in D.C., and ended up pleasantly surprised with how things turned out. The race exceeded my expectations on a lot of levels.

Rock 'n' Roll USA shirt and medal

I ran this half years ago while I was in grad school when it was just known as the National Marathon and Half Marathon before the Competitor Group took over making it part of the Rock ‘n’ Roll series this year. I remember it being freezing cold, and I’m a bit of a cold weather wimp. I remember a lack of crowd support especially in the last few miles. I remember crossing the finish line, going right to bag claim and immediately heading to the metro wrapped in a space blanket saying never again.

Despite that, I found myself at the start line again on a beautiful St. Patty’s Day morning last Saturday. Temperatures were around 50 at the start and probably got up to mid-60s by the end of the race. It was probably a bit hot for the full marathoners as temps continued to climb, but it was my favorite kind of race weather. Not half bad for mid-March!

The Competitor Group has gotten some bad press in recent years including rising prices, a large amount of racers getting sick at the Las Vegas Marathon or frequently running out of medals or food for slower runners. My last experience with them wasn’t so great either. I ran the Nashville Country Music Marathon several years ago and it was a bit of a disaster as most of us had to be diverted to the finish line at the 22-mile mark because of an incoming tornado. While I understand they had no control over the weather and probably made the right decision to cut the race short, there were a lot of
other issues that could probably fill an entire blog post on its own. My biggest problem was that they started the race 15 minutes early without making an announcement leaving me stuck about 15 corrals behind where I should’ve started wasting energy weaving my way in and out for the entire first half of the race.

Celebrating with my friend Lindsay post-race at Four Courts. She also set a PR finishing in 1:41:14!

I had good intentions when I signed up for this last November, but unfortunately started training about a month later than I should have and followed a plan geared toward the Cherry Blossom 10-miler next weekend instead of focusing on this race. I’ve been running a lot and working on my speed, but other than one 13 miler a few weeks before the race, I haven’t run more than 8 miles since Marine Corps Marathon so I didn’t have high hopes for my time.

The race was underway right at 8 and thanks to starting in a corral near the front, the first few miles were much less crowded than I expected. We started out running behind the Capitol Building and worked our way down Constitution along the Mall before turning up 18th. I hit the 5k mark in 23:19, a much quicker pace that I thought I’d be able to run. The course was hillier than I remembered (selective memory has a way of making that happen) as we winded through Adams Morgan and worked our way to H street before making our way back to the finish line at RFK.

The crowd support was also better than I remember it and I was feeling pretty good making it a fun race. I surprised myself setting a PR with a 1:43:14 finish, maintaining a 7:53 pace. (Full disclosure I’ve only run 2 other half marathons.) The perfect weather, better than expected organization of the race, and a PR all exceeded my expectations. The post-race beers at Four Courts and a Syracuse win made it a great day. I might even run this race again someday!