Matt and I ran another 5K this morning and it was fun!!  I had two goals going into the race:  #1 – Don’t walk and #2 – Finish in under 30 minutes.  Not only did I run the whole thing, I finished in under 27 minutes!!  I’m still surprised!

The “Fueled Up & Fired Up Pick 5 Challenge” race took place in Matt’s hometown of Wallingford, PA and was sponsored by Wilson Oil & Propane.  We started at the Wallingford train station and wound around neighborhoods for two miles before tackling the hilly Smedley-Leiper Trail that parallels the Blue Route (I-476).  Thankfully, the race finished with a nice downhill towards the Wilson Oil parking lot.

Matt was the 7th finisher overall with a time of 24:52 and I was the 4th female to cross the line with a 26:51.  We both ended up first in our 20-29 age group which was kind of cool.  Granted, there were only a few people in our age group and the entire 5K race only had 67 entries, but I was still pretty excited!

I had a very different strategy for this race than I had for the Run-A-Muck 5K we ran last month.  I tackled the Run-A-Muck with no watch, no music, no iPhone… just me and nature.  Because of this, I went out way too fast in that race and then mentally gave up on the hills and walked (a lot).  I also took a big gulp of water at a water station during the Run-A-Muck which made me feel sick for the rest of the race.  I tried to apply what I learned last month in today’s race.  I used RunKeeper to track my pace, I had a nice, upbeat music playlist to listen to, and I didn’t stop for water.  I’ve also been practicing running up hills in my neighborhood which helped me mentally when I got to a long uphill near the end of today’s race.  All in all a big improvement!  🙂

Here’s RunKeeper’s summary of today’s race.  (The finish time is a bit off because I was late hitting the stop button.)  The hills in the Smedley-Leiper trail definitely hurt my pace in the 3rd mile but overall this was much faster than I was expecting.

Here’s my latest mile tally.  Many of these miles were done on the elliptical due to my sore foot but it seemed that cross-training worked because my foot feels a lot better now!

Miles since last post:  69.6
Days since last post:  17
Average Daily Miles since July 18th: 5.03
TOTAL MILES: 472.6

Our next 5K is next Sunday and then we’re entered in another one the following Saturday.  Go big or go home, right?

Related Posts:
•  Limping my Way to 400 Miles (10/3/13)
•  Run-A-Muck 5K (9/22/13)
•  300 miles and a 5K in my future (9/9/13)
•  200 miles!  (8/26/13)
•  100 Miles in 21 Days! (8/7/13)
•  100 Mile iPad Mini Challenge: 49 Miles to Go! (7/29/13)
•  The Challenge Begins: 100 Mile iPad Mini Challenge (7/23/13)