Diploma Dash 5k - Race Recap

I found out a few weeks before I was set to go home that my hometown was holding the 3rd annual Diploma Dash on Saturday the 7th. I quickly decided, why not? My sister was also going to sign up, and depending on schedules we were going to sign the kids up for the 1 mile.

Going into the race, I had no idea what to expect. With all of the long runs, and trying to gauge marathon pacing, it had been quite awhile sine I ran fast. I decided on three goals:

Goal 1 - run it in around 33 minutes; about an 11 min pace.
Goal 2 - PR! For that to happen I needed to beat 30:34 according to my official time from Light the Night last October.
Goal 3: Run it in less than 30 minutes.

I went out fast, but it didn't start feeling fast or hard until about the one mile marker. When I saw my Garmin display under a 9:00 minute mile, I more or less knew I wouldn't be able to keep that up. At least I had given myself some cushion though.

The first water stop (I couldn't believe they had more than one for a 5k!) was a good excuse to grab a breather. I walked twice more after the turn around - once just to take a breather and once up the hill! Miles 2 & 3 were pretty consistent. I did some math in my head, and knew under 30 was a stretch but possible.

I turned the last corner, glanced at my watch, and sprinted in. (Well, it was a sprint for me anyway!)

The display on my watch read 3:09. Later, when I plugged my Garmin into my computer, this is what I saw for splits:

Split	Hours:Minutes:Seconds      Time	Miles     Distance	Minutes per Mile     Avg Pace
Summary	30:09.5	3.12	9:40
1	8:54.2	1.00	8:54
2	10:04.7	1.00	10:05
3	10:18.9	1.00	10:19
4	:51.7	0.12	7:17

According to the race timing (it wasn't chipped time), I finished in 3:07! A pretty nice PR! According to official timing from October, I PR'd by 27 seconds. According to my Nike app timing from the same October race, I PR'd by 10 seconds. A little frustrated that I was just :07 away from under 30 - I mean that's the water stop, or the hill! Oh well!

A few pictures from the day:

my twin sister and me

with our Opa, her two oldest, and her husband
 

The one mile race happened at the same time as the 5k, just with a different turn around (obviously), so just my sister's oldest two ran. I think it is more geared towards the school-aged kids anyway. In the girl's 1st grade division, Krissah took 3/4. Jaycie won the 3rd grade division (even if it was 1/1)! They were so proud of their medals! (the awards ceremony was after this picture was taken)

My sister took 9/25 in our age group, and I took 11. (Official results can be found using the link at the beginning of this post)

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning!