Hello all,

Feels so long since I wrote my last RR, and in fact it has been. Oct of last year. That's five months without a race! Always seemed like one thing led to another and we never got around to registering for any of the races we wanted to do, but that's OK! We are going to shoot for at least one race a month. I'm sure you all don't care about that and just want me to stop rambling and get on when the good stuff but I like to talk, and I like pictures so kick back, relax, and enjoy the read!

Saturday, March 30th 5:45am - Alarm goes off, and I was already awake just laying in bed waiting. Pre-race jitters got to me this weekend and I had about 4 dreams and they all involved racing. Perhaps it was the cajun chicken pasta I had for dinner... who knows?? I get up, get in the shower "I know, I know, I about to go run a race and get all hot and sweaty so why shower?" Well.. because I wanted to! I hop out of the shower get my running clothes thrown on and go to grab my swiftwick socks, I find one black and one grey and blue, neither has a pair. I got into the laundry room and lo and behold they are in the bottom of the laundry basket, really? So I throw two socks into a washing machine by themselves "talk about a waste of water" and put them on a quick cycle. While those are washing I'm trying to get the dogs taken out, fix a quick breakfast, make sure I have my watch, HRM, and all that to take with me. Its about 6:40 we need to leave at 6:45 and my socks are still in the dryer. I just said screw it, grabbed a sock, I know have one wet and one dry sock on and we head out the door. I drive the majority of the way there with my feet heater on trying to dry my sock before we get to the race... Just wan't my morning... yet!

We arrive at around 7:20 and I get a call from Mitch saying that he is on his way! We mope around the place for a while and while we are wainting on Mitch I run into a old GameStop buddy of mine who was running the 5K as well, which was pretty cool. Mitch finally arrives and we head over to the Porta Potties at about 7:45, they have 10 with about 100 people in line waiting to use the bathroom. We manage to get back to the race line at 7:58 but had to get back in line with the walkers instead of where we needed to be.

The lady tells us to start and we are off..... at a slow walking pace for the next 2:30min before we even pass the start mat, we finally get across it and we start our watches and pick up our pace. Mitch being the awesome guy he is asked me as we started off what pace I wanted to hold, I said 8:50 and so we found it and ran with it.

About .15 miles into the course we have to run up this decent incline across a bridge and back down. I don't have good hills where I live so this was a bit rough for me, but I managed and actually did fairly well keeping the pace right along side Mitch. (I guess those leg workouts are paying off). Once we cross the bridge and go back down its about as flat of a course as you get. I do good this first mile and pretty much stay right on Mitch's heels the entire first mile, even was able to attempt to make small grunting noises to let him know I'm still breathing and everything is good My Garmin beeps for the first mile and I'm at 8:51. I tell myself I got this and we keep running...

We are now into mile 1, we hit the half way mark and Mitch calls back to me we are half way there, I'm not going to lie, I'm tired and its starting to warm up and had it not been for Mitch I probably would have slowed down some, but if he is going to set a pace for me then by God I'm going to keep up. Aside from being tired, winded and tired mile 2 beeps and its 8:50.

8:51, 8:50, and we only have 1.1 miles left to go. I so got this, I'm not giving up, I can tell my heart rate is on up there but I just keep breathing and keep planting one foot in front of the other. We pretty much make a big loop and before we get to the finish line we have to go across the same bridge with the same (*$($&% incline! REALLY!!!??? Oh well, I knew what was on the other side of that bridge and I wasn't slowing down.. ok maybe I slowed a little bit but I caught back up on the downhill and picked up the pace some, Mile 3 beeps and its 8:41, I really haven't been paying attention to overall time I just knew I had a goal and I was really hoping to beat it.

I push hard that last little stretch and cross the finish line with an effort of 6:04 for that little bit of push, I finished in.... well that's at the bottom, its time for a picture break

Of course no race is complete with out our number 1 fan!

My best friend. The one who has started running the C25K. His wife came too, and don't tell her I said so, but she is pretty cool herself, in fact she is the photographer for this race, thus why we don't have any pics of her.

My wife and I before race start

A few pictures of the crowd that was there

Here is Mitch and myself after we crossed the finish line

My wife coming in for the finish

After the race and we have cooled off a bit

And of course i have to end the pictures with my two most favorite women in the world

Now for the moment you all have been waiting for!!!

I had two goals set for myself. I wanted to run sub 28, I would have been happy with this time as it would have been a big improvement over my Liz Hurley back in October. My next goal was to run sub 27:30. Now just so you all now this was my Liz Hurley time last year

Liz Hurley 5k 2012 - 29:39

This race I finished in 26:47!!!!! That's almost 3 mins off my last PR, I was so super excited about my time and I owe a lot of thanks to Mitch for setting a pace and running along side me! So Mitch, Thanks for that!

I hope you all enjoyed the read and I guess I need to get busy getting faster because I don't plan for that to stay a PR very long

Congratulations on the PR!  A big time improvement.  BTW, your adventure with your socks the morning of the race sounds like something that would happen to me.  Best wishes on your next PR!

Great pictures and congrats on the PR!

Congratulations on that great PR! I see many more PRs for you this season. :-) Thanks for the great pics. You have a beautiful family!!!

Excellent - huge PR!

Great job and a huge PR! Fantastic

Congrats JBJ.  Just so you know, I like a shower before a race too.  I think it's more for the purposes of making sure that I'm completely awake, and feeling fresh and fast.  You have an awesome family there, and I'm glad Mitch could make it.  It sounds like everything turned out amazingly well.  Enjoy the new PR, and I look forward to reading your future RR's.

Nice job, it's the beginning of something big this year!