Achilles St Patrick's Day 5km Run!

I may not have signed up for this race had I realized that last night was "spring forward", the dreaded lost hour of sleep.  Not tired, I stayed up a bit too late enjoying a lovely wine and cheese party with some old friends and some new ones.  But since it was only 5km* it was well worth the decreased sleep to participate in a fun race with a good cause**.  The run was a 5km out and back that started and finished at the Steamwhistle Brewery.  I left the house at 8:45 to be there for 9:30.  The weather report said 2 degrees celcius which sounded so balmy that I ended up fairly under dressed and shivering on my way there.  I experimented with race fueling by having a piece of toast with PB&H and a small bowl of grapes (+ lots of water!) 2 hours before the race.  This seemed to work.  ThePrez also ran today.

Race Recap:

The Prez does a little power-up before the run. 

I'm pretty excited about the sweet tees (they're technical, oh yeah).

Our race kit came with gloves too!  Not to mention the Irish Spring deodorant (manly) and free body wash and coconut water after the race.  I'm a sucker for swag.  The two of us are standing in a crowd of 1500 racers waiting for the gun (?) to go off.  We never actually heard a gun. 

Fast forward to the end of the race!  They handed us some free chili and beer and we hunkered down on the floor to listen to the live Celtic music. 

The food.

The eating. 

HOW DID I DO???!?!

For my first official 5km race since the Turkey Trot Incident of 2001 when I ran it in over 33 minutes (meaning my second ever official 5km race)  I ran:
28:36.4!!!!

Had I known I was so close to getting under 28:30 maybe I would have tried harder.  Maybe not.  It felt fairly impossible to speed up.  Likely because my first km was painfully slow getting stuck in a pack of 1500 runners and trying to dodge without being a total jerk AND my second km was way too fast.  I should have been in the middle a bit more.  But I'm happy with the time.  Here are my stats (they aren't exact because it got a bit confused among all the tall buildings downtown and mapped me running through structures...hmmm).

PACE

1      5:57

2      5:10

3      5:49

4      5:16

5      5:45

AVG 5:35

A big shout out to The Prez for making like Trogdor and BURNINATING that course.  I don't have an exact time but she ran it in under 26 minutes.  Way to go!

*Aren't I obnoxious?
**Achillescanada.ca  This organization supports physically disabled athletes to train for and run races