Beware - ZOMBIES!!

Today I ran the Spooner 10k. It was a Halloween themed race & they also had a Spooky 5k. We were encouraged to dress up, which I gladly did. It was another opportunity for me to try out a costume for the upcoming Disney races. I had already ran in a sparkle skirt, so this time I decided to try out my Megara costume. It was in the 40's at the start of the race, and I had bundled up in what I thought was appropriate. However, I soon found out that 2 layers of shirts and my costume would still be a bit too much. After about the first mile, I stopped to take off one of the shirts I had underneath my costume. that was a task and took me about 5 minutes of wriggling around to get it off. Needless to say, this would NOT be a PR race. Add that to the massive hill during the entire mile 3-4... yup, I was not getting a PR.

So instead, I decided to just slow down, take it easy & finish the race.
I finished the race in my worst 10k time to date, but it was still a good experience... one step closer to those Disney races!
It was a fun race, and I got a super cool shirt, but one that I probably won't do again. I tend to avoid hills like the plague.. once is enough for me!

Now, this Megara costume used to be huge on me. it was like an XL and I wore it when I was a size 20-22ish and it was long (to my feet). I took it in by like 6 inches on each side, cut it short and voila, a super cute running costume for the Enchanted 10k (and Spooner 10k!)

And because this race did not give a medal, I decided to earn my Zombieweek virtual race medal. It was a 5k distance, but it's a big medal (3 inches) and glows int he dark - I figured it was worthy of 6.2 miles.
NO, my skin isn't really green, I used a photo editor to make it green, but decided it was appropriate for that medal 

It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's....

SUPERMOM & SUPERSON, flying through the freaky 5k!!

Another great 5k with my oldest son is in the books.

I'm doing a costume 10k race next week to practice running in a costume and my son heard about it said he wanted to do one, but he's never run that far, so being the good mom that I am, I had to find a costume 5k for us.
The East Providence Fire Fighters Freaky 5k was awesome! The long sleeve (cotton) shirts rocked (see the picture of it below) and we got a cool, reuseable, hard plastic cup filled with candy. All that and the entry fee was only $20!
Then they had a huge spread of real bakery donuts... can we say YUM! They tasted amazing. Along with coffee, fruit (oranges, bananas, apples), etc.

The course had a few hills... you know how much I hate hills. lol. And the steepest one was at the end... don't you hate that?  But otherwise the entire course was marked with cones so we had a little lane to run in, there were police & fire fighters all over the course. They even had someone at each mile telling us the time.
The weather was beautiful - a tad chilly, but for late Oct, it was nice. I had no trouble running in my costume and found it to be good practice for the Disney races, but my son, who was wearing a costume with pants & long sleeves got a little hot during the last mile.

After we finished, they treated us to pulled pork sandwiches, chili and pizza. There was even a DJ playing songs.

I thought we were being somewhat original with our costumes. My son wanted to reuse his Superman costume from a few years ago and I got a matching superman shirt to wear with a team athletic sparkle skirt. But there were about 5 other superman, supergirl, superwoman, etc. Oh well!! Our favorite costumes that we saw others wearing were Mr. & Mrs. Pacman along with about 10 colored ghosts.

Overall, it was a wicked fun time and we will definitely be back for next year!

Tufts 10k for women

I already had a pretty good proof time for Disney (has to be a 10k or longer). But the key word was "pretty good". I wanted better... I had to try for 'just one more'.
I signed up for the Tufts 10k for Women because 1. it was one of the only 10ks between now & the cut off date of Nov 1st. and 2. because there would be over 7,000 participants and I figured it would be a great practice run for the crowded Disney races.

The day was beautiful, about 63 degrees - just perfect for a race! We had to see ourselves at the start line. I joined the 10 min mile pace because I was hoping to finish as close to the 10 min mile mark as possible. It didn't really seem that crowded at that point, but once we got started, it was definitely crowded! They didn't stagger the corrals which would have probably helped with the crowding, so once the gun went off, everyone just kept moving towards the start line until, you got there and started off. I was probably about 4 'corrals' back from the start line and it took me about a minute to move up to the start and get going The first mile I was weaving in & out of people and I didn't end up stopping for a walking break because it was just too crowded.

The course was really nice & scenic. We started at the Boston common, went across the charles river on the Mass Ave bridge, then down & back on Memorial drive which was right along the river, then back over the bridge, through a historic distric and to the finish. There were water stops ever mile. Mostly flat - just one small hill around mile 3. Even though it was crowded, most of miles were around the 10:30 mark. At the halfway point - the 3.1 mile mark, I was expected to finish in about 1:02-1:03. But at mile 5 I hit a little bit of a wall and that mile was 11:00...ouch! I had to pull it together for the last mile... I wanted a PR and better proof time so badly. I pushed as hard as I could for that last 1.2 miles and finished in 1:06:08. However, my GPS tracked that it was actually 6.3 (not 6.2) so my 10k time was probably 1:05ish. My overall pace was 10:30 accourding to my GPS. But because the 'official' time tracked me at 1:06:04, they divided that by 6.2, which gave me a pace of 10:38. Still, that was 3 mins faster than my last 10k, which should give me a good enough time for good corral for Disney. At this point, I honestly don't know if I could have done any faster than that (maybe just 1-2 mins faster), so I am happy with that!! I do hope to keep improving and hopefully reach the 10 min mark for my 10k as well.

The thing I disliked the most was the start time. It didn't start until noon, but we had to leave our house at 8 am because they were closing off streets at like 9am and we wanted to make sure we got a parking spot in time. We didn't get home until after 3 pm so it made for a very long day! Because the race did not give finisher medals to everyone, I earned my Red Queen 10k medal. Huge bling for a PR!!

5k PR!!

I has been a long, HOT summer. My previous PR for a 5k (3.1 miles) was achieved on June 20th and my time was 32:08. That's a pace of 10:22 minutes per mile.
Since that day, I have been trying super hard to break that record, but with the heat during the summer months, it just wasn't happening. For months, I couldn't even break the 11:00 min mile mark. Then towards the end of September, the cooler weather set in and slowly, my pace started to get better.
Until, FINALLY, I beat my 5k PR tonight! My first mile was 10:18.... second mile (which didn't feel any faster) was 10:03. And then... my last mile was 9:58. I couldn't believe it! I finished in 31:12, at a pace of 10:04 per mile. With negative splits!!! normally my first mile starts off fast and I get slower, this time it was the other way around until victory was achieved!!

Finally, all the sweat (literally) from the hot summer months... all those runs I had classified as "bad", had paid off!

I normally keep my virtual race medals for long runs, but I decided a long awaited PR deserved something special