Seattle and Surf City 5k Recap

I hope you had a wonderful 4th!  July 4th is one of my favorite holidays.  BBQs, hanging out with friends, being all patriotic, fireworks...  Plus I look just fantastic in red, white, and blue.  I also like that it's not a very politically/religiously polarizing holiday.  No one feels left out, and also, it's not one of those holidays where it's not as fun if you don't have close family ties (Thanksgiving), a Sig-O (Valentines Day)....etc.

Which is why it's kind of odd that I spent my 4th of July night watching a Keeping Up With The Kardashian's marathon.  But I was super spent due to two things:

Weekend Travels to the PNW

Last weekend I went up to Portland to see Anthony where he's on project and then we drove up to his old stomping grounds, Seattle.  That place is awesome.  And beautiful. 

Seattle is probably the 2.5th most beautiful city in the US in my opinion.  

We spent the first night out with some friends downtown, and then stayed in a another friend's house whose back yard was ON A LAKE!!!  So relaxing.   We spent the whole day eating, drinking, and hanging out with Anthony's old friends who were a lot of fun. 

We also went back to Fremont and walked around the next day.  They were selling a t-shirt that said "Amazeballs".  Every blogger needs one!

The next day we (sadly) headed back to Portland.  When I flew out back Monday morning, I geeked out at all of the Olympic trials athletes hanging out at the PDX airport.  No, of course I didn't stop any and say "Omg did you run at the trials that's so cool". 

All in all a very fun but exhausting trip. 

I ran a 5k yesterday

I'm not devoting a whole post to it because well...I just don't want to :).

Sarah Oual, Kristina, and I signed up for the Surf City 5k Run last week and decided to make this fun way to start the 4th!  This race is pretty cool because it's got a lot of great runners in it, has a festive atmosphere, and a 4th of July Parade afterwards. 

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 I didn't do great last year, and I wanted to redeem myself.  I woke up yesterday morning and felt really tired.  Definitely didn't feel like racing!  I hoped I would feel better as I sugared and caffeinated myself.  

My goal for this race was to keep up a 6:26 pace (20:00), which sounds doable in my brain, but is apparently much harder for me to pull off (spoiler). 

I warmed up, found Sarah and Kristina, and then saw my friend Pam in the starting corral.  I was pretty flustered but felt better when I saw Pam because she's such a sweetheart and sort of a calming force! 

Some girl sang the National Anthem and I remember thinking "oh wow, this girl is pretty good".  I found out several hours laster that it was Leann Rimes singing.   I'm oblivious as always.  I wished I'd paid attention because I want to see if she is as skinny and fake boobed as the tabloids say! 

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The race started and I told myself to run a smart race.  My first mile was exactly at 6:26.  I just didn't feel "on".  I felt kind of bored which is a weird feeling in a 5k.  My second mile was a 6:28 and by then I told myself to just make the last mile a 6:30 and while I wouldn't meet my goal, I'd be close. 

No dice.  Mile three was a 6:44 and I plugged on in at 20:29.  I'm not sure I even kicked much.  I just wanted to be done and hadn't really shown up mentally or physically. 

Granted, 20:29 is only three seconds off my PR (the last 5k I ran in January), so it could be argued I should stop complaining.  But if I can't improve in 6 months of hard training, what do I really have to show for myself?  I don't want to be happy with something that is less than my best. 

Kind of discouraging, especially given that I've been pretty happy with my training the last couple weeks.  (haven't written much about training lately but I'll try soon!). 

On a pretty cool note, Kristina came in right behind me and her chip time ended up being 20:25 which was something like a three minute PR for her!  She mentioned that she'd been pacing off me which is hilarious because I bet if I'd run two minutes faster she would have run that too.  She's that good! 

I saw Oual and Pam finish which was cool, and poor Sarah had her shoe come untied during the race.  So freaking annoying to have that happen!  

We cooled down together and I headed back home.  I spent the rest of the day glued to the couch feeling like I'd run a marathon, so something was probably a little off in my body that day.  I still feel weird and off actually. 

Despite my dissatisfaction with my performance, this is a really fun race.  I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to kick off July 4th in a fun way, and it would be fun to dress up or run with friends. 

One day I'll run three 6:26 miles!  Yesterday was not my day.  If anyone has any great success in improving their 5k times I'd love to hear what worked for you!