Bear Paw 5K

Nothing like signing up to run a race the night before at 10 PM. I’m so indecisive!!

Saturday morning I raced the Bear Paw 5K, and I am happy to say I PRed and broke 20 minutes!! So exciting! And this was all in the midst of a 60 mile week for me. 🙂 That means I have broken my PR in the marathon, half-marathon, 10K (unofficially—in a training run), and now the 5K all within the last two months!!

Flowers post-race from my sweet, sweet husband!

So, yes, it was Friday night, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to race a 5K the following morning and then finish my long run afterward or just do my normal Saturday long-run routine and be good with that. But since the racing season is so limited up here, I decided I’d better take advantage of as many races as I can.

I was so nervous Friday night that I didn’t sleep very well because I really wanted to break 20 minutes. I figured I would be able to PR, but I didn’t think I had it in me to break 20 minutes—especially when I found out I would need to average 6:25 minutes/mile! (My previous PR was 20:49.)

On Saturday morning, once we got to the start, I had to wait in line to pick up my bib. And while waiting, a fellow reader came and introduced herself to me. (Hi, Lauren!) I love when people come and introduce themselves. . . .that’s what makes blogging so fun and worth it—the social interaction whether it is online or in person.

Prior to the race, I did a 1.5 mile warm-up. I jogged about one mile and then did some dynamic stretches and accelerations. The shorter the race, the more time I spend warming up.

Since this was just a 5K, I made sure to find a spot at the front because I knew I wouldn’t have time to waste dodging people and getting boxed in. When the gun went off, I took off at a pretty fast clip—much faster than I anticipated. About a quarter mile into the race, I looked down at my watch and saw 5:41. Yikes! No wonder why I feel so out of breath already!!

Overall, the race went really well. It was tough, but I kept pushing myself to try and stay as close as I could to a 6:25 pace. My first mile was 6:25, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain that the rest of the way. I did my best not to let myself slow down, but the second mile was 6:33, and the third mile was 6:28.

I did not think I had a chance of breaking 20 minutes after seeing those last two split, but then I saw the finish was not that far away and my watch said something like 18:45. I knew I could run the final stretch in less than 1:15, so I pushed as hard as I could until the finish.

My Garmin and the official results don’t quite match up, but I’m going with the official results. 😉

Garmin results:

Time: 19:43

Distance: 3.05 miles

Average pace: 6:28 minutes/mile

Official results:

Time: 19:41

Distance: 3.1 miles

Average pace: 6:20 minutes/mile

Overall place: 42/906

Female placing: 7/581

Age group placing: 3/169

After the race, I had to run an additional 10.5 miles to get to 15 miles for the day. Those 10.5 miles actually went really well, and it wasn’t until the last mile that I started to feel fatigued.

Since we were still in Eagle River, I thought it would be fun to check out this Bear Paw Festival.

It was your typical carnival rides and vendors with the booths set up selling various homemade goods. (The mountains in the background are very beautiful.)

Craig and I walked around a while enjoying the nice day. We don’t get really excited about events like this, but it is fun to do something different every once in a while.

After coming home, it was straight to the tub for an ice bath for me. But then it was time to get fancied up for some date-night action.

I bought a Groupon to Ling & Louie’s which we had heard good reviews about so we were interested in trying it out ourselves.

My handsome date.

The inside of the restaurant.

I ordered the Evil Jungle Princess Chicken.

I really liked my dish, but it was mostly just chicken and rice, so I wished there would have been more vegetables. I also requested brown rice but ended up with Jasmine rice instead. It looked like Craig got the brown rice instead in his dish.

Craig ordered Ling’s Seafood Hot Pot.

Craig really liked it, but it was too spicy for me.

For dessert we ordered the Chocolate Volcano. It was good but not good enough to order again.

After dinner, we rented the movie Big Miracle. I really just wanted to see this because it was filmed in Anchorage and we saw Drew Barrymore at a local cafe while she was in town filming it.

Overall, it was a pretty cute movie—definitely a good family-type movie. It was fun to try and figure out where some of the scenes were filmed around town. I think we got the biggest laugh when Sarah Palin showed up in the movie as the sports newscaster. Ha!

Time to go to bed!