Early this morning we ran the Minnesota Half Marathon 5K. It was a
pretty nice morning it wasn’t too hot at 70 degrees but it was a bit humid. I
didn’t expect much for this race as I’m nursing a sore calf muscle from the
Torchlight 5K a couple weeks ago. It has been bugging me a lot the last couple
days. I wore my compression sleeve to keep my calf stabilized. I think it
helped. The race was an out, turn around, run back past the finish line, turn
around and then finish. You know how much I love out and backs so this was just
so much fun…NOT! It was an interesting race as the half marathon is either run
or skate, as in rollerblading. I think the rollerblading part would be fun but
I’m not sure I’m up to doing 13 miles on rollerblades…although it would be much
easier than running 13 miles. Ha!
The Start
The 5k was kind of small with around 780 runners. The start wasn’t that
exciting and my first mile was around 11:40, much slower than the Torchlight first
mile but I was smarter about this race and didn’t go out too fast and my miles
2 and 3 were faster because of it.
The Middle
We ran out to the turnaround spot and came back. The first water stop
was just before we ran past the finish line. What is very discouraging is when
you run past the finish line and the first 5K runner were already done. :(
Right after mile 2 I had to walk for a bit. My calf was angry at me!
The Finish
After the walk I started running slowly again, right around 12:00 but
the last quarter of a mile I amped it up. I was glad that I had enough “gas” in
the tank to “sprint” to the finish; my finishing pace was around 11:00. At Torchlight,
I had nothing left and barely ran under 12:00s. So I call that a win! My
finishing time was 35:34…but it was a bit short of a true 5K.
We got our awesome medal and made our way to get some food and slowly
walked to the car. After a quick stop at Starbucks, we were on our way to our
second run of the day in Wisconsin.
The Chili Race
The second race was in Chili, WI. Last year I struggled with the 10K. This
year I only did the 5k. Eric still ran the 10K and was the only runner and
finished first…and last and won $50! He got an escort into the finish line by
the ambulance. Ha! My run was slow but I wanted to make sure that Jesse, a girl
that work for Mike could finish in 40 minutes. That was her goal. So I stuck
around her, doing the run/walk/run method. I was tired from the first race so
that worked well. The race had about 50 people. Most were walkers; the young
kids were runners and were gone right away so it really was only me and Jesse
for most of the 5k. There was a water stop at just over a mile. I didn’t drink
much of the water, but poured it over my head. It was really hot at 5:30pm. The
first mile was on grass and dirt, the next mile was on gravel country roads and
the final mile was a mix of gravel and pavement. I crossed at 39:38. Jesse was right behind me
at 39:45. We made her goal of 40 minutes!
Pictures, Maps and Splits
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| Minnesota Half Marathon 5K Map |
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| Minnesota Half Marathon 5K Splits |
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| Chili 5K Map |
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| Chili 5K Splits |
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