Kingwood 5K race report.

This morning I took part in the 2nd annual Kingwood 5K, which benefits our local botanical garden Kingwood Center.

The day started off great. I got out of bed around 6:00 and started getting ready, and I was out the door by 8. The race wasn't to start until 9:00, but since it was just down the street I was walking to registration. As I was getting ready to leave J said he wanted to walk down with me. So at least I had a buddy to keep me company on the walk down.

This would be the best part of the morning until the race actually started. Once we arrived at Kingwood I saw my sister who was racing with me today. She was just coming out of registration with her packet.

Now, here would be where the fun should have started, but instead I ended up with an epic fail. I went to check in for the race and pick up my race packet, and I was told that I was not registered.  What! Are you freakin' serious! I still get to race but I don't get a swag bag or one of the regular race bib numbers. So not the way I was looking to start my race prep. Not very happy about that or the lack of organization to start the race off.

I got my number pinned on and  handed off my shirt to my wife who had just arrived since she was getting H and I ready to go when we left to head to the race.  We had a little bit of time to kill so we stood around talking and I ran into my friend Jen whose son was racing today too. It was now time to start getting into position for the start. Only the starters were a little confused as to where the start actually was.  Once the start was determined, a small talk and a few instructions  later we were off.

My sister and I getting ready for the start

My plan going in was to get going with a soft pace through the first trail section, then once on the pavement of the bike trail I would turn up the speed until I reached the next trail section then sprint the final section that was on pavement again. Good theory, I just ran when the gun went off, and ran fast. Oops, I tried to slow down and hold back once we got to the grass, but it was too late my body had already committed. I should have listened to my body instead of my head saying hey "you're going to fast you're not gonna make it at this rate." One day I will learn that I can run that fast or faster the whole 5K distance. Stupid brain thinks it's sooo smart, but I have my body trained not to quit.

My finishing sprint

I wish that I could have taken some pics during the trail and bike path part but that section was not spectator friendly and I was way to focused on the argument between my brain and body that I didn't have time to do anything but focus on running. I was just cruising along as I cleared the 2 mile mark a nice gentleman let me know I was as 15:33.  I thought that this was pretty good until the lady in my phone let me know I was doing much better than that. I was on pace to meet or possibly PR this race. That is what I thought until I turned on to the last trail section. There was a sharp uphill that caught me off guard and caused me to slow down enough that I wasn't able to recover not even my sprint to the finish wasn't fast enough to make me  match my previous PR.  I did however, finish with a 24:11 time and that was good enough for 27th out 220.  I was going to run another 5 miles to round out my Saturday work out, but decided to just to save it for tomorrows long training run.

All in all the run was good if not for the lost registration and general lack of organization in timing and logging finish times.