This was my second time running the Kaiser Permanente Women's Fitness Festival. Last year I ran my fastest 5K time. You can check out last year's recap here. This year I was hoping to beat last year's time since training had been going well but unfortunately the stars did not align on race day.
PACKET PICKUP: Packet pickup was at Fleet Feet Sports in Sacramento. Pickup started on Thursday and you had till Saturday to pick your bib and shirt at Fleet Feet in Sacramento. There was also race day pickup. I actually did not have time to go to SAC and did not want to get up earlier to pick up on race day. Luckily due to awesome coworkers, I was able to have my stuff sent to the Fleet Feet Davis store.
RACE DAY: The race started at 7:30am. I was carpooling with my friend Maria, and she picked me up at 6:30. I reserved parking at a garage that was really close to the start line. It was only $5 and I figured with reserved parking it'd save us some time by not having to look for parking. It only takes about 25 minutes from my house to the parking garage so I thought we'd have about a half hour to warm up. However, Google Maps took us on a route to where the roads were already closed for the race, so we had to go a round about way of getting to the garage. Secondly, as we got closer to the parking garage, there was so much traffic getting in. Turns out some of the people trying to get into the garage were having problems scanning their reservation codes in the reader to get in. There was a parking attendant helping out but I think it took a while for him to arrive, thus the traffic. When we finally parked I only had about 15 minutes to warm up and get to the start.
Coach Dawn wanted me to do a dynamic warm up of leg swings, lunge matrix and then a 10 minute warm up with 3 x10 second strides towards the end. I quickly did the warm up and during the 10 minute run found these porta potty's that were unoccupied, so I stopped to go quickly before heading back to the start line.
When I got to the start line, the corral was already packed. I could not get close to the front. I tried to inch my way but it was too hard.
I ended up pretty far back. You can see that I was behind the 12 min/mi sign. I wasn't in a good position to PR.
The race started on time and I had to weave in and out a LOT to avoid the slower runners. I ended up starting way faster than planned and used a lot of energy in the first mile. I did try to slow myself down to save energy but it didn't work out for later in the race. My first mile came in at 7:37 average pace.
Also with this race there were a lot of turns. These turns slowed me down along with the groups of people in the sections that were narrow. It was hard to pass in those parts. In mile 2 I started to struggle. I think I used too much energy weaving around people. Mile 2 came in at 8:00 average pace.
Running the next mile was definitely a struggle. I think I was already disappointed with my mile 2 split that I mentally wasn't there. Being upset did not help along with it being hot. I warmed up pretty fast in this run. I did a great job of positive splitting this race. I remember thinking that this run sucked, I just need to finish. Mile 3 came in at 8:12 average pace. When I got to that 3 mile mark, I kicked up the pace and gave it my all. The last .12 came in at 7:12 average pace.
My chip time was 24:37. I was so close to a PR as my time last year was 24:35. Oh so close. I was actually surprised with my time after mentally giving up in that last mile. On the upside I managed second place in my age group. I think the faster runners were running a different race because last year this time would not have gotten second place. However, I'm happy with it and I'll take second. :) I did get a really cool bracelet as the age group award.
After the run, I enjoyed taking pictures and browsing the booths with Maria.
This time we went to the Mimosa garden earlier.
We even tried out Normatec for recovery.
Here are some finisher pics with our medals.
One with my AG award.
A close up of the really neat bracelet age group award.
Overall it was a well organized run! Thank you Fleet Feet Sacramento for putting on a great race! I enjoyed the post race treats. Nugget market provided fresh fruit, granola, yogurt, and almond milk. There was lots to browse and Kaiser Permanente had a nice area of information and booths. There was even a Fleet Feet boutique shop where I ended up buying two cute tanks. Also this year there were free pictures which is always awesome in my book. The medal was nice again this year too! Hopefully next year, I will improve my 5K time. If not that's ok too. I think leaving earlier will be the way to go so I can warm up and get to the start line with time to spare and not have to rush.
Happy running!
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