Two weeks ago when I ran Martin’s Run 5K and won $75 in gift certificates AND a signed baseball I was positive that I had hit the motherload of all 5K awards.  But guess what?  I was wrong because the raffle prizes that Matt and I won at this morning’s Fueled Up and Fired Up 5K in Wallingford, PA just paid for all of the 22 races that I’ve done in 2014!!  Here’s what we won:

• A bucket of craft beer (pumpkin and fall varieties, of course!) and a gift certificate to Quotations, a gastropub in Media
• Brunch for 6 at Brandywine Prime in Chadds Ford
• And… drumroll, please… 150 gallons of heating oil from the event’s main sponsor, Wilson Oil!!

The heating oil alone is easily worth $450+ and is definitely something that we would otherwise be buying at this time of year so yeah, that just paid for all of my race entries from the last 10 months.  Thanks, Wilson Oil!  🙂

The race itself was pretty exciting too.  Last year’s Fueled Up 5K was my second race and I remember being so excited afterwards because I finished the race without walking (a big feat at the time!!) and I got a then PR-time of 26:51.  I knew going into today’s race that I can now run much faster, but I was curious to see how different my race and splits would be after 12 months of running.  Here’s a side by side comparison of last year vs. this year’s race!

Fueled Up 5K 2014

Fueled Up 5K 2013

I ran almost 3 minutes faster this year and finished with another sub-24 time (!!) of 23:56.  Woohoo!  As you can see in the stats above, I went out really fast but the first mile also had a huge downhill so that 7:16 pace felt surprisingly comfortable.  Matt and I passed one another a few times during the second mile as we wove through relatively flat neighborhoods, but then I pulled into the lead for good at the 2 mile marker, just before we entered the woods for the long climb up the paved Smedley-Leiper Trail.

Last year I vividly remember working SO HARD to keep from walking up the winding hills on the Smedley-Leiper Trail.  Apparently the race directors remember this too because this year they had a separately timed “King of the Hill” challenge that tracked the last 0.8 mile stretch for all of the 5K and 5 mile runners.  This was a fun idea and helped to give some additional insight about pacing and finishing speed.  I placed 7th overall in the 5K and, looking at the 5 mile results, if I had run the same pace in the 5 mile (not likely), I would have finished 8th overall.  So basically with all of the 5K and 5M runners lumped together for the last 0.8 mile stretch, I would be sitting in 14th place in terms of overall race pace.  But get this… for the King of the Hill challenge I ended up 8th overall!  So I actually ran up the big hill and finished the race at a much faster pace than several of the runners that had overall faster races.  (Sorry, that got a bit complicated there, but I find it interesting!)

Matt finished 13th overall and 2nd in his age group with a 24:46.

My 23:56 finish time was good enough for 3rd place female and 1st in my age group which reminds me… I only have one more weekend to go before I join the 30-39 age group!!  I turn 30 on November 1st so I better have a good last race in the 20-29 AG in next Saturday’s Bark in the Park 5K.  As the name implies, the Bark in the Park is a dog friendly event so I will be borrowing Bella the GSP to run with me.  I’m looking forward to having a 4-legged racing buddy!

Miles since last post:  71.1
Days since last post:  13
Avg. Daily Miles since 7/18/13: 4.88
2014 TOTAL MILES: 1421.2

Related Posts:
•  Martin’s Run 5K (10/5/14)
•  Haverford Township Day 5K (9/27/14)
•  Run A Muck 5K-ish Trail Race (9/20/14)
•  Talk 5K Trail Run (9/13/14)
•  Pickle in the Streets 5K (8/28/14)
•  Radnor Red Steeplechase 5K (8/17/14)
•  Riddlewood Swim Club 5K (8/3/14)
•  Swarthmore Lions Independence Eve 8K (7/18/14)
•  Cam’s ‘Moonlight’ 5K (7/10/14)
•  Media 5 Miler (6/20/14)
•  Radnor Conservancy 5K Trail Run (6/1/14)
•  Rocky Run 5K Trail Run (5/30/14)
•  Run for Victory 5K (5/18/14)
•  Elwyn 5K (5/3/14)
•  St. Tim’s 5K (4/26/14)
•  Rick’s Run 5K (4/19/14)
•  Las Vegas Security 5K (4/3/14)
•  Color Out Cancer 5K (3/30/14)
•  Athlete’s Closet March 5 Miler (3/1/14)
•  Athlete’s Closet February 5K (2/1/14)
•  Athlete’s Closet January 5K (1/4/14)
•  New Year’s Eve 5K at the YMCA (12/31/13)
•  Athlete’s Closet December 5K (12/14/13)
•  Turkey Trot 5K (11/28/13)
•  Trinity Presbyterian 5K (11/2/13)
•  Oy Vey 5K (10/27/13)
•  Fueled Up & Fired Up 5K (10/19/13)
•  Run-a-Muck 5K (9/21/13)
•  The Challenge Begins: 100 Mile iPad Mini Challenge (7/23/13)