Tuesday, July 31, 2012

CATnip 5K

Shake 'em ... even if you don't have 'em!
Pre-Race.  I hadn't even planned on doing many races this year, but when Cilley Girl told me of a race and said Kim was doing it too, well, it didn't take any much swaying to get me to register! So Man Friend and I quickly registered for the CATnip 5K in Tualatin, a race starting at 6pm in the summer ... hm... last time I did that the finish line started a trend for me... MF and I left early in the morning to get up and meet CG for a day  o' fun that involved copious amount of shopping for gels and blocks and copious amounts of tots ... our fail-proof pre-race food! Before long we were in our race attire and heading to this rather large park in Tualatin. I was tempted to just stay and hang out at a strange birthday party/baby shower/volleyball game being played with a basket ball. But alas, instead of that CG and I just did a little booby shake by the pinatas and called it good! The whole gang met up to enter the raffle, get pre-race photos and take our spin at a prize table. I won a shirt! Soon we all took our places at the start line... I was already whining about the heat. Shocker.

Kim, Cilley Girl, Fruit Fly, "Mr. Tibbs", Man Friend
The Race.  I knew only one thing about this race, with regard to my strategy ... start as close to the front behind the "elites" as possible. This wasn't chip timed and I wasn't going to be having extra time added just because of that. I had a fresh play-list of new songs I'm obsessing over and that was started as soon as the gun went off. I hit start on the Garmin and simply told MF to "just stick with me". Apparently my body decided to push for a PR. Apparently my brain forgot that I haven't been doing legit speed work and that it was like running on the sun.

Can you spot all of us??
Thanks to Kim & S for capturing my final sprint!
And we were off! From the very first step I was fighting for that PR. I was not going to walk a single step. I was not going to back off. But I was also not going to tear out too fast and burn out. The hills were unexpected. I was happy we've been working on hills, but even after one of them I had a harder time recovering on the downhill than I usually do after a climb. Did I mention is was so freaking hot?? We had no conversation this time. At most I tried to lighten up by singing the Call Me Maybe song - complete with the pinky/thumb hand motion. The rest of the time MF was just behind me giving me words of encouragement and telling me when to back off because he could feel I was ready to start my finishing sprint way too early. Looks like the coach got coached!

Coming up to the final stretch Gym Class Heroes came on. I was going to finish with Travie singing to me no matter what. From that point on everything I heard was a blur. Everything I could see was a blur. The only focus I had was on the clock. I cracked into high gear and finished off with a new 5K PR!! 

Post Race.  That course was much tougher than the Boston 5K, so I was really excited! So excited I was again dry heaving in a garbage can and then instantly feeling both calves start to cramp. We made our way to the bananas and I just started shoving them down my throat, along with water and muscle milk. I had to almost make myself fall just to get onto the ground to stretch them out. When Cilley Girl came into view I jumped on MF's back to get a ride to the finish line to cheer for her. I'm that annoying peppy girl - I insisted we give her a power arch to run through. I thought it was cute! (*Thank you Dead Jocks in a Box for that inspiration!)

I went home with tons of swag... for my girls! Dog toys and food, cat toys and food, even a bandanna for my cat! I really like that this race was for a good cause ~ animals! I had a really enjoyable time. And hey, I was 7th in my age out of 47! And 21 out of all women overall. This was pretty freaking awesome! We concluded and celebrated our individual victories at Red Robin with great conversation and yummy food. I can't wait to see the gang again ... looks like that is just a couple weeks away. Who knows, maybe I'll go get myself another PR!
We're a great team - 2 new PRs are in the books!

6 comments:

  1. I feel obliged to point out that MY pre-race PR meal would be sushi ;) You may have to suck it up for Crawfish Crawl so that I can ace this one! Maybe we can smuggle in tots and mac and cheese to the sushi place....

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  2. With CG and Mr. Tibbs already signed up for Crawfish, it looks like it's a date! S is going to run this time, and so will our kids.

    Hey-congrats on a new PR. So glad I was there to watch the magic happen!

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    1. Now if only I could run faster than S .... I'll give up that dream - or he might not so happily volunteer to hold my junk in the future! ;) See ya in a couple weeks!

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  3. OH MY! Nice work!! I fear the summer night races where it gets so hot. You brought home a cat bandanna? You are a very thoughtful cat mom!
    Can't believe you PRd here over Boston! Must have been some good racing and good strategy. :)

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  4. Congratulations on a new PR! You are getting so fast!

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