World Culture Club 5k

In February, Hubby and I signed up for a 5k training group with Fleet Feet Tucson. We met with them each Tuesday night for twelve weeks and had our graduation run on Saturday, April 18th.

Here is our crew. There are a few runners missing. They weren't able to make the race.
Left to right: Brent, Leslie, Jenny, Linda, Coach Jenn B., Meagan, Heidi, Karie (me), Ruth, Aaron (Hubby), Rhiannon, Coach Jeanne, and Coach Jenn S.


The race was at 49'ers Country Club in the Tanque Verde Valley. It was a beautiful day, with no wind that morning. We met our group and quickly began to laugh at the guys from Robeks trying to blow up one of those gigantic, inflatable smoothie cups. They had a tough time with it. We all watched as the 1/2 marathon took off and then went for a little warm-up.

At the start line, we found out the course that was printed on the web was actually backwards, so we ran the opposite of what he had driven the night before. No biggie. It was a pretty small race, about 300 people between the 1/2 and 5k. The course wound through the neighborhood, and we got to look at all the pretty houses, some even for sale. I looked them up later that night on-line, and only one was in our price range. It was one I liked though.

Back to the race. I was feeling pretty stiff for some reason and was having some lung difficulty. The lung stuff could quite possibly be contributed to the endless winds we have had lately. I did okay though. I stuck to my plan of running 3 minutes with a walk break of 1 and 1/2 minutes. I walked through two run intervals at around miles 1.5 and 2.5, but for the most part, stuck with the plan.

As I rounded the corner and headed in to finish, I saw my hubby and Coach Jenn S. waiting at the beginning of the finish chute. Jenn took this picture as I was coming down the street.

When I rounded the corner, I heard the race announcer call out that there was another Fleet Feet member coming in. Hey, that's me. At that time, I started on the grass and promptly tried tripping. The announcer also told me not to trip on the grass. Thanks, buddy. Just a little too late. Luckily, I didn't fall. I ran up the rest of the finish chute with a bit more speed than usual to the rest of my group waiting to cheer me in. Overall, a nice little race, tight legs and lungs and all. This is only my second stand alone 5k (third 5k counting the one at the end of the tri). My time was 57:02, about 4 minutes faster than the first one, and 1.5 or so faster than the Tucson Tri 5k. I'm getting just a little faster. I start building mileage this week, Woo Hoo!