Runnin 'O the Green - 5 Miler

Hi! Yesterday was my first race of the year. Very exciting. Although I woke up to POURING rain, and hesitated about running in a down pour for a hot second, I still had a great time at this local event.

Wet

Am I really about to run in the rain?

I ran this race last year with a time of 49:49. Yikes. I hadn't made running my priority over the winter, so my time definitely showed. But this year is a new story. I've kept my running up and it paid off.

The race is ran though scenic trails of Whatcom Falls park, which I rarely run, so the change of scenery is nice. I'm always reminded when I do run there how much I love it and that I should go back soon. The course has a lot of ups and downs and one long, gradual up that had my lungs burning at the end.

I paced off of a guy going about 8:30-8:45 and we leap frogged though the ENTIRE course. I wonder if I was annoying him? I wasn't annoyed, I liked his pace. That's a compliment, right?

The rain actually didn't bother me at all, it was the puddles. HUGE puddles on the trails. And mud. I had avoided them until the last .15 miles of the course when I tried to avoid it, but ended up running into another puddle that fully submerged my foot. Awesome. At least I was done and my boot dryers were ready to dry out my shoes at home.

My time was 41:00 flat, according to my Garmin. Whoa, I thought, that's really good for me. But then I looked at the distance. 4.66 miles?! It wasn't a full 5 miles?! Is my Garmin not calibrated correctly? Or is the race really that short? I think I'm going to email the race director and look into it...

Overall, it was a fun first event. But my first BIG event is coming up in a couple weeks - Lake Samammish Half Marathon!

Did you race this weekend?