I ran another race! And I did it speedily too!

Yesterday morning, a big team of our friends ran or walked the Run for the Rose 5K race to raise money for brain cancer and children’s cancer research. (A brief news story I wrote about the history of the race is here.) The race is named after a woman who died of brain cancer at age 27. In its 9th year, there were over 4,000 participants to raise millions for two hospital foundations.

We ran as part of a team to honor the memory of one of our friend’s father who died less than two years ago of brain cancer.

Race Recap:

To happier things, let me tell you about the race! First, I didn’t exercise much this week because I had some early morning things, so I had fresh legs (or un-trained ones, you choose). I have been running pretty slow for a while and had no expectations of anything great this morning. I started like all races with one piece of toast with a small amount of peanut butter and half a banana. It looked like this picture, but just one piece of toast.

Why this shouldn’t have been a good race: The course was kind of boring (around Reliant Stadium up and down parking lots), I don’t like running in t-shirts because I get hot, and I didn’t even wear shin sleeves or tape. It’s already summer here, no cool Springtime weather.

However, I realized when I hit the first mile marker that I was going pretty fast for me at 9:50. I had a great pace, felt good even though the t-shirt felt like running in pajamas, and kept on going. The second mile marker was 11:00 minutes later, and the 3rd was 10:19 later. I didn’t even know what I ran the last 5K race in (actually, when you have a blog, you do know these things), but I knew it wasn’t as fast as I was going. I finished 3.1 in 31:48, an average pace of 10:30! This is two minutes faster than a 5K I did last October.

Let me compare to the 4 mile race I ran one week before–47 minutes. That’s only .9 miles longer, and I ran this 5K at a pace to finish five minutes faster. That’s amazing for me!

I also took about a 20 second walk break in the 3rd mile up a ramp hill but then saw paparazzi so I had to start running again!

I am so thrilled with my time. I guess I need to sign up for more races before it gets too hot!

My right knee was bothering me slightly in the last mile, but I have come to accept it will never go away and I better get used to short distance races.

We didn’t take too many pictures, but here are a few:

The Team Donny family.

Three pregnant girls on our team bringing up the caboose! A finish is a finish!

Also, I have a new story about Spring cleaning your kitchen for CultureMap. Check it out here.