What a great way to start the day…..at the Sailin’ shoes 5K. I hadn’t giving much thought about signing up for the race, my coach/friend/motivator Nancy’s nudge of encouragement of ”you really should add some speed work into your training and besides you’re planning on running Saturday morning anyway”.   Had me pointed to the running store and signing up.

As always it’s heart warming to see several friends and familiar faces in the crowd getting ready for the race to begin.

Heading out on the start, I spot Joyce from the PPR R just up ahead and picked up my pace a bit to catch up with her at the first mile mark for someone to run with. My split at the 1 mile mark was 8:40, I’m thinking “wow, that is a great pace”  as compared to my pace at the Garden of the Gods 10 miler was more like a minute and half slower.

I continued to pace myself with Joyce and savored the needed  company as I felt my pace slowing by mile 2.  Then the turn around on Cascade street.  Joyce headed  north for the 10K coarse and I south to finish the 5K, now on my own … time for some mental focus for the last mile.

With the finish line in sight……Nancy joins me from the side lines (she already finished and set a new record for her age-group) shouting “put your head down and go!”  I found a bit more energy to finish strong.I was elated to find that a placed 3^rd in my age-group and my best PR for a 5k. Bonus: Found a race calculator on the Pikes Peak Road Runners site which gives your average pace per mileyou’re your race distance. Visit PPRRun.org and navigate to the results page. You’ll find it there. See you at the races.