Lillywhite Running: King Tiger 5k

	Time/ Pace	Div.	Div. Pl.	Gen. Pl.	Ov. Pl.	Bib #
Owen	20:30 6:36	Male 35-39	9/ 52	56/ 289	62/ 616	265
Michael	23:08 7:27	Male 1-14	7/ 30	104/ 289	118/ 616	264
Alicia	43:39 14:03	Female 1-14	19/ 21	278/ 327	561/ 616	261
Kyle	44:05 14:11	Male 1-14	27/ 30	284/ 289	566/ 616	262
Malissa	44:06 14:12	Female 30-34	51/ 57	283/ 327	569/ 616	263

Michael and I have a goal to each break the 20 minute barrier in a 5k. We each keep improving so we thought we'd give it a shot in this race. To run 19:59, you need to average 6:25 or so per mile. I wore the Garmin and told Michael to just hang with me, then we could race the last quarter mile. I locked my pace on 6:25, looking at my watch every few seconds to make sure I was not going too fast or slow.

We crossed the 1st mile marker at exactly 6:25. I felt good but knew it would be a stretch to hold that pace for two more miles. When Michael and I train together, we usually run at about a 7:55 pace or so, so we are able to carry on conversations without much effort. Going this fast, however, I wasn't about to attempt to ask how he was feeling. He was keeping up.

Shortly after the first mile marker he said he wouldn't be able to keep up any longer. We had discussed this and had decided if either of us couldn't keep up, the other one should still try and do it. So I encouraged him, and then he hung back.

I crossed the 2nd mile marker at exactly 12:50, I was nailing this pace. Shortly after that, however, I realized I wasn't going to be able to hold it for another mile. I did the third mile in 6:50 or so, then finished the last tenth of a mile strong to finish in 20:30. I'm still very happy with this time, the last 5k I did was 9 months ago and was my PR at 22:27. So I can't complain beating my previous time by almost two minutes. Here is my Garmin data.

I waited at the finish line, hoping Michael wasn't far behind. He crossed at 23:08, which is a minute and a half slower than his PR. He told me he had cramped up pretty bad. He is so competitive, he doesn't like the fact that my PR is faster than his by four seconds. I know he'll train hard and beat it in three weeks when he runs his next 5k.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Joana mentioned that her daughter wanted to start running. She shared that running does not come naturally to her daughter Julianna but that she wanted to encourage her and was looking for ways to help her. Of course I jumped all over this, it makes my heart so happy to hear that kids are interested in running. I told her that the kids and I had a 5k coming up and that we would love for Julianna to "train" with us and then we would run the race with her. Knowing that we only had two weeks to train we decided to approach this race with a run/walk.

This was my good friend Lynne's first 5k! She hurt her knee a few years back and her doctor basically told her that she wouldn't be able to run again. Well, she didn't listen to her doctor and began doing exercises to strengthen her knee. She started running and for the most part she hasn't had too much pain in her knee. I was so excited for her when she told me that she signed up to run this race. I love running with my friends and family!

Before the race the kids and I talked about how this race would not be a competitive race for us. We were going to run this race for Julianna, be there to encourage her when she needed it. The kids agreed and thought it was a great idea. Once the race started Alicia's competitiveness took over and she really stuggled the whole race to slow down. Joana wanted us to go ahead but I really want to teach my kids that it's ok to be competitive by at times it's more important to help out friends, especially when they need the encouragement. There's always going to be another race that they can run for themselves.

I'm so proud of Julianna! She worked really hard these past two weeks and improved so much. She had a great run/walk and I hope she enjoyed it.