The facts: 5K in 24:14. A PR by 4 minutes. 2nd age group 3rd overall. No time for lipsticks nor Red Door perfume (sorry Ileneforward). I wore my lucky Capri tights and my "Let's Climb a Mountain" finisher t-shirt. My shoes of choice was my new Asics Nimbus, which I love. But, no garment was tied around my waist this time, so no fine from SpareRibs ) The narrative: Today was the 30th annual Oroville May Festival Run. This was the first race I ever did in this county when we moved here 12 years ago, so I always try to run it every year. Today was also the town of Oroville's 100th anniversary celebration as well so I really hated to miss it. But at the same time I was debating if I should run it or not considering that I just ran a marathon three weeks ago and ironed a trail relay race last weekend, which was a 21.7 miles race. Last night, after dinner I decided to go ahead and run today, but treat it as a training run. This morning I drove up north for one hour enjoying the scenery to it's fullest. After arriving in town and registering I then decided to run the whole course as a warm up and also as a way to check what the dictators of all "the body and the mind" were telling me to do at the race. I was actually amazed at how good I felt, no aches, no pain and the muscles were not feeling like lead. Toward the end of the w/u, I remember my own advice to MS and Enkie last week...let the race come to you for the first half and run as if your hair was caught on fire on the second half...so...I decided I should be practicing what I preach and do the same today. At this point I crafted a goal that was way out there for me (last 5k was28:24), but not too far out that it may bring some injury to my tired body, so I set my hopes for under 26 minutes, or an 8:24 pace. The field was a medium size for our area...so I decided to place my self towards the middle and when the gun started I hit my goal pace and “allowed the race to come to me”. At the turn around point I took a look at my faithful Garmin and found that I was at 13:45 and that my HR was doing great so decided it was time to start imagining that my hair was caught on fire and ran within my limits, pushing, but not to the extreme and get back to the finish line as fast as I can. The 1.5 miles seemed so loonnnnnggggggg at that pace, but I kept thinking only one more block and when I conquered 3/4 of that block…I said again…one more block and that helped me to keep the pace I was holding. I refrained to look at my pace until the finish line. The result of this effort was a finish time of 24:14 (7:50 pace) according to my garmin. A slashing 4:07 PR from my last year's 5k and it even gave me a nice ribbon for my third place overall and a hardware for my second place age group…imagine that.

Outstanding race, mariposai. You sure did run like your hair was on fire. Congrats on the big PR, 2nd in AG, and 3rd OA. TomS

A HUGE congrats to you for a wonderful race...you rock!!! Yeah, that last 1.5 miles is tough in a 5K. GREAT JOB!!! Loved your race report! Tim

Oh, my goodness, what a wonderful race for you!! Congratulations! Your race report comes at a perfect time - I will try your strategy in the morning.

Mariposai, What an excellent race you had. Congrats on your AG/OA placement and your new PB! Paul

Wow Mariposie!! That is amazing, awesome, so exciting to shave 4 minutes of your former PR! Congrats!!

You went out for a training run and hit a PR and got hardware!!!! Sweet.

that's an amazing performance! you are one amazing runner! susan (had to think long and hard about where oroville was, till i remembered up by osoyos... all those Oooos!)