Race Report: Take Back the Night 5K

I heard about this race only this morning, but I had slept in and not run this morning so I figured since it was in my home town I might as well do it as my run this evening. The timing was awkward--the race started at 6 pm by which time I tend to really need dinner. I ate some substantial snacks as a compromise.

I got there too early, plus the race started late, for one thing because they had more people show up than expected and ran out of pins. I knew I wanted to push myself so I started out fairly fast. Sometimes I had to slow down because I was getting too out of breath. The second mile was almost all downhill and the third mile almost all uphill, and I slowed down a lot that last mile. With a cloudy day and leaves on the trees my GPS doesn't give me reliable results. I started it a bit late and it says 2.98 miles in 28:37 minutes (8:59, 8:50 and 11:14). But my finish time was 32 something. It doesn't make sense--I can't believe it was 4 minutes before I started the GPS, but the time should be right even if the distance is not. The results will be posted on Terry Times but they aren't there yet.

I was hoping to beat 30 minutes and so I was disappointed, particularly as I did push myself hard. I suppose I went out too fast given the hills, but I'm not sure I wouldn't do it again, hoping that I'm getting stronger. I was disappointed that they didn't annouce age group results, but most of the runners were college students. I think I would be faster in the morning than on a Friday evening after a tough week, but it tells me not to expect to beat 30 minutes in the Clemson triathlon.

Update: my posted time was 32:28. I placed 102 out of 195, but that includes walkers. No results by age group.