Putting the "Fun" Back in Fun Run....

Saturday afternoon I ran the Pumpkins in the Park 5K. And no, I didn't manage to reach my ever-elusive goal of breaking 30 minutes. In fact, this was the first race in my short racing history in which I did not achieve a PR. Chip time was 30:59, which is 56 seconds SLOWER than my last 5K time.

I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that this wasn't going to be THE race about half a mile in. It was *crowded*. Probably the most crowded race I've done outside of last year's Turkey Trot, and at that point, I was more concerned with finishing (and not coming in last) than I was with my finish time. I didn't even bother to pick up my timing chip at the Turkey Trot.

Anyhow, I spent the first mile of the race dodging slower runners. At one point, we all had to stop and WALK to feed through a narrow bridge walkway. To further complicate matters, I couldn't get a signal on the Garmin and had no idea what pace I was at when I hit each mile marker. I know (from the Garmin) that I ran much of the race at the pace I'd need to break 30 (at or below 9:30), but there were also points in the race where I was forced to slow to an 11-minute mile pace because of congestion. Along the way, I had an epiphany: As long as I am this focused on breaking 30, I am not going to enjoy these 5Ks. It feels more like work, and it's frustrating to be this close to a goal and not be able to meet it.

Other than that, Pumpkins in the Park was a great race. Dean brought Sadie (Ella was at a birthday party), and we had a great time at the postrace party. Sadie got some candy and decorated a pumpkin. I had a free beer that tasted great after a hard three-mile run.

In other running news, my mileage for this week was 15 miles, total. till running short on where I'd like to be (but also running short on time and energy and daylight hours). My next race is still up for grabs. There's another Halloween race this weekend that I'm sorely tempted to run to try to finally meet my time goal. There's also a 5K/15K at the beginning of November. I'd love to do the 15K but would probably feel compelled to do the 5K (unless I run this weekend's race and break 30). I know Dean will say to wait before doing another 5K since I haven't had time to "improve." However, we're talking about FOUR seconds here. Surely I'm capable of cutting four seconds from my best 5K time? Bad as this sounds, I'd really like to do it and get it over with so I can go back to enjoying the race experience.