Sage Summit 5K Fun Run
When I registered for the Sage Summit 2012 conference in Nashville, TN, a conference for the business software we use, one of the registration questions asked if I wanted to run in the 5K fun run. Well, yeah! Of course I do!
I am unable to write a short race report, even for a short race.
The conference ran from Tuesday to Friday, and the fun run was early Wednesday morning, before the conference sessions began. I picked up my packet on Tuesday afternoon, which included a cotton T shirt and race bib. I wasn't surprised that there were no size small shirts. At least I got a medium, rather than the large I expected.
The race was supposed to begin at 6:45am, before the conference sessions of the day begain. I was happy that it was light early, being on the eastern edge of the central time zone, so I got out there early to run a short warmup. The temperature was around 70 degrees. Not cold by any means, but cooler than home! I intended to go 5 minutes out and then turn around, but I got nervous that I'd miss the start, so turned around after 4 minutes. Another woman had followed me and turned around with me. We chatted. She was from Maine and was young and faster than me. I was working to keep up with her easy warmup pace.
When we got back somebody was leading the group in stretching exercises. Ok, what the heck. I'll join in too. Then we all lined up at the start line, they took a group picture, and then they fired the starting gun.
First mile was mostly an out and back along a highway frontage road, before turning back into the hotel roadways. It then went all the way around the ginormous Opryland hotel, giving us a nice tour of the place. We wiggled our way through some traffic circles to add mileage and then back to the frontage road and across the finish line. It was a flat, flat, flat course. There is noplace in Austin that approximates the level of flatness of this course.
I wanted to start relatively easy and build. I didn't want to get caught up in somebody else's pace. And I wanted to run hard. Oh and there was the Dan & Linda challenge, sponsored by Industrios. Dan & Linda are employees of Industrios. You had to specifically register for this challenge - it wasn't enough to be registered for the 5K. So any male who beat Dan or female who beat Linda and who was registered for this challenge was eligible for a prize. If there were more than 1 in each category, there would be a drawing. I saw a video of Dan and Linda, and thought maybe, just maybe.
The course: Weird and wiggly.
The elevation profile: FlatFlatFlat
My time: 25:21. A 6 second PR over January's New Years Double PR!
My Garmin splits: 8:20, 8:21, 7:52. The third mile was only 13 seconds off my mile TT PR!
And I beat Linda's time! And I was the 5th woman overall! And I won the drawing so won the Linda challenge!
Accepting my giant fake check from Linda. Note the bad hair day. No time to blow dry.
I won a $100 donation to my favorite charity (Blue Dog Rescue) and $100 to spend at the hotel (hello, sushi dinner!).
What a great time I had!
I am unable to write a short race report, even for a short race.
The conference ran from Tuesday to Friday, and the fun run was early Wednesday morning, before the conference sessions began. I picked up my packet on Tuesday afternoon, which included a cotton T shirt and race bib. I wasn't surprised that there were no size small shirts. At least I got a medium, rather than the large I expected.
The race was supposed to begin at 6:45am, before the conference sessions of the day begain. I was happy that it was light early, being on the eastern edge of the central time zone, so I got out there early to run a short warmup. The temperature was around 70 degrees. Not cold by any means, but cooler than home! I intended to go 5 minutes out and then turn around, but I got nervous that I'd miss the start, so turned around after 4 minutes. Another woman had followed me and turned around with me. We chatted. She was from Maine and was young and faster than me. I was working to keep up with her easy warmup pace.
When we got back somebody was leading the group in stretching exercises. Ok, what the heck. I'll join in too. Then we all lined up at the start line, they took a group picture, and then they fired the starting gun.
First mile was mostly an out and back along a highway frontage road, before turning back into the hotel roadways. It then went all the way around the ginormous Opryland hotel, giving us a nice tour of the place. We wiggled our way through some traffic circles to add mileage and then back to the frontage road and across the finish line. It was a flat, flat, flat course. There is noplace in Austin that approximates the level of flatness of this course.
I wanted to start relatively easy and build. I didn't want to get caught up in somebody else's pace. And I wanted to run hard. Oh and there was the Dan & Linda challenge, sponsored by Industrios. Dan & Linda are employees of Industrios. You had to specifically register for this challenge - it wasn't enough to be registered for the 5K. So any male who beat Dan or female who beat Linda and who was registered for this challenge was eligible for a prize. If there were more than 1 in each category, there would be a drawing. I saw a video of Dan and Linda, and thought maybe, just maybe.
The course: Weird and wiggly.
The elevation profile: FlatFlatFlat
My time: 25:21. A 6 second PR over January's New Years Double PR!
My Garmin splits: 8:20, 8:21, 7:52. The third mile was only 13 seconds off my mile TT PR!
And I beat Linda's time! And I was the 5th woman overall! And I won the drawing so won the Linda challenge!
Accepting my giant fake check from Linda. Note the bad hair day. No time to blow dry.
I won a $100 donation to my favorite charity (Blue Dog Rescue) and $100 to spend at the hotel (hello, sushi dinner!).
What a great time I had!