Watermelon Run 5K

I'm currently in Winter Park, Florida, a tiny little town on the outskirts of Orlando. I'm dogsitting for a family that I know and will be here a total of 11 days. When I got here, the mom let me know that there was going to be a 5K on July 4th. She and I run together when she's back in Baton Rouge and I will be returning here in February to compete in a half marathon. I figured why not? I need practice and don't really have anything else to do.

Oh gosh, Florida humidity + race = brutal. Parts of me that I didn't know sweat were sweating. It was nasty. My time was 34:57 which isn't my best time but I finished! And I finished in both the top third and was one of the first 3000 people to cross the finish line so I got a nice little souvenir cup.

There are parts of this race that I liked a lot better than the Race for the Cure in Waco.

1) Pace signs - All of us got to run according to what pace we could do. This really helped out with the start of the race as the people with 10+ pace and walkers were to line up in the back so I didn't have to dodge them. However, it also seems some people were a little too confident in their pace but at least it wasn't a lot of them.

2) Time clocks - At the 1, 2, and 3 mile marks, they had time clocks up so you could see how you were doing. The only downside to this is that not all of us started at 0:00:00 seeing as how the start corral was pretty deep. It helped to know that I started around the 1 minute mark.

3) Star Spangled Banner - A trumpeter came out to play this before the race and I realized that we don't hear this song enough ... especially on the 4th of July. Francis Scott Key really captured the fight in Americans' hearts to be independent and free.

4) Watermelon - oh gosh, out of everything at the end of the race that they had to help hydrate us, the watermelon was by far the best. It's 92% water. I think this should be an option at the end of all races.

There were also things I didn't like ...

1) No warm up - Now I didn't like that there wasn't an organized warm up like Race for the Cure had. Granted, these were all pretty serious runners and we all warmed up on our own. I just think that a group warm up would have helped pass the time.

2) Tshirts - Both races had race tshirts but I learned on this one that you don't have to wear it to the race. And if I do another hot race like this, it's time to put aside my modesty and just run in a sports bra and shorts. I haven't run in a tshirt since Race for the Cure and have been fine in a tank top but I was dying out there. The only downside would be I need something to wipe my face.

3) Running alone - I mentioned this before but it's still true. I would much rather have someone there with me although now it doesn't have to be someone running. There were over 3000 runners there today .... aka strangers. Before the race, I was starting to get really anxious about this and knew that if it didn't get better, I would have gone back to the car and left. I think if someone had been there with me and we were chatting, it would have been much better.

But I finished and survived and had a really strong finish - a faster pace from 2.8 on and then sprinting the last tenth. Gotta finish strong. And now I'm off for a pedicure and some self care before Zeus and I head out to the lake tonight to watch some fireworks :-)