I talk way too much, so I'll try to make this one short! 
This past weekend was the Eugene Marathon Weekend. I did the 5K on Saturday.
4:30am
- my alarm goes off. Silly me felt it was important to go check
facebook and my stupid farm, so then in the end I felt like I was
running late. I wanted to leave my house at 5:45, but I think it was
closer to 6am that I finally left. Got gas on the way out of town, and
I was on my way! Things went fine until the exit I was supposed to take
was closed and I had to take a detour. I don't know my way around
Eugene, so I was mildly panicking about being able to find it and get
there on time.
7:15am
- got to the race area with 45 minutes to spare! I was happy to see we
got pretty cool tech shirts instead of some loud tie-dye cotton t-shirt
that I saw in photos from prior years. Another moment of panic set in
when I got back to my car to put on my shoes and my number, and I saw I
had no safety-pins. Fortunately I ended up finding a big bowl full of
them when I got back to the race area. I was scrambling in my head as
to how I was going to get my bib to stay on. In the future I will bring
my own - just to be safe!
7:55am
- we all line up on the street and Flap Jack comes over to the race
area. Poor guy - he has to run in basically a big pancake mascot type
costume. If you cross the finish line before he does, you win 40 pounds
of Krusteaz mix. Yeah, that guy is FAST! I had no hopes of passing him
so I didn't even try. I think maybe 10 people beat him last year?
8:00am
- we are off and running. I was settling in to my pace and feeling good
when I looked up, and there was the biggest hill ever. They said, right
before the starting gun, that this course was "as flat as a pancake".
Well, this pancake has HUGE lumps! I decided not to let the hill phase
me, and I just kept my pace through the entire thing and even passed
people, so that was a boost to my confidence right there! The course
went through a nice wooded park along the river. After the hill it was
pretty much a flat course -thank goodness! Feeling cocky, I continued
running while making silly faces for my camera. I have my priorities,
ya know! 
8:32am
- Mile 3 was in sight. Click a photo of the mile marker, Click a photo
of myself at the mile marker, and then go in for a really fast (for me)
sprint to the finish. My goal was to get a new PR for myself .... and
at 8:33 I did!! A fellow runner behind me told me I had a very
consistent pace and she made a point to always keep my pony tail in
sight. So that was nice to hear. I always try to keep myself at a
steady pace, so I guess I did! Upon checking, I beat my last race time
by a full minute - even with that huge hill! The last race was just a
completely flat course, so I'm still celebrating the fact that I feel
like the hard work is paying off!
10am
- I hit the expo and totally scored! The "goody bag" was actually
pretty good! I managed to snag a free t-shirt from a vendor, talked
with some Disney people (which always gets my ex-cast member pixie dust
flowing again!), bought a Prefontaine running shirt to use while I
train for the Prefontaine Memorial later this year, snagged a free
Prefontaine poster to put up as motivation, and got myself a "Will Run
For Margaritas" head band!
Overall it was a total success!
After
the race I spent the day at the Enchanted Forest (our corny Oregon
theme park that I can't get enough of) and did some shopping. Got home
around 11:30pm. Needless to say I spent the rest of the weekend feeling
completely hungover. But it was totally worth it!
Division: 24 out of 61
Gender: 165 out of 400
Time: 33:24:00
Pace: 10:47
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