Honda Classic 5K - January 18, 2014

Whew I can't believe that I haven't posted anything on the blog since my last race. I certainly was on a high from it for a while!

I initially wasn't going to run it... It was further away than I'd normally like and more expensive than most. But my friends convinced me and I figured it was a good thing to experience; being able to run through a National PGA Golf Course.

Can you ask for a more beautiful course?!

We got there ridiculously early which I like. My friend Mel's work was one of the sponsors so a bunch of her co-workers were there too and I was able to meet some of them. Made for a very social morning. 

We lined up at the start, and I was thankful that there was a starting line that would officially start our chip when we crossed the Start rather than when the gun goes off.

Kim and I start off together through the initial part of the race which wound through the parking lot then we kind of got separated. Once the race took its turn to start onto the Golf Course, it was a whole new ball game.

My usual training runs have NO hills, however... as you know... golf courses have all kinds of little ups and downs. This was certainly reflected on the Golf Cart path that we were running on.

This was also my 1st race running with my Garmin. I was always very surprised when looking down at my watch and saw I was flying at about a 9:20-ish pace. That's way faster than I usually go but I was feeling so good.

The scenery was definitely helpful... And when we passed the putting green, everyone stopped & cheered for us which was really fun and motivating. I'm sure the 60-something-degree morning played a HUGE part into my success too.

I kept passing people and knew I was going to finish strong. There were 2  pretty steep hills (Kim had told me about 1 on our way to the race but they added another this year... RIGHT before the finish line. That's just mean!).

As I came down the last hill, I could see the finish line & the clock and knew I was going to be able to get my sub-30 time once again (finally.) I checked my Garmin and verified that indeed I had done it.

I waited at the finish line to cheer in Kim & Melissa... then we all went over to the breakfast. Just for fun, on our way to the table with our food, I swung by the print outs of everyone's time & where they placed.

I couldn't believe it! I was listed as finishing 2nd in my age group, my first time ever placing in a race!

Posing with my Finishers Medal & my 2nd Place medal. :)

For a race that I didn't even want to ... It certainly turned out great! I will definitely be running this one again next year, if for the course alone.  (And I gotta admit... now I may even watch the Honda Classic Golf Tournament now that I've been ON that Green... and I hate watching golf - except for Rory of course.)

The 3 of us, post-race

Results:
Time: 29:08 (a whole 3 minutes faster than my 5K in Dec)
9:24/mile pace
2 out of 10 in my age group
Overall: 191 out of 363