Esprit de She 5k

On October 10th, 2013 I ran the Esprit de She 5k with my best friend Jenn.

This run was a last minute endeavor. Jenn shared a code for a free registration with me the day before and even though my shins and calves were KILLING me from pushing really hard at the gym all week, I caved and agreed to do it because hey, free 5k (plus I had another TWO 5ks coming up in two weeks which I was completely unprepared for). So the day of the race I still went to the gym (just a few hours before) and did K-Rock which is 50 minutes of straight kettlebell work, in order to earn MEPs for a contest we were doing.

On the way to the race we got stuck in terrible traffic due to an accident on the freeway, and then got lost trying to find the race start due to poor signage (read: no signage) so we showed up just a minute or two before the starting gun went off. Unfortunately, the path to the starting line was also the race course, so it didn’t take long before we had to jump out of the way of the runners, whom we couldn’t cut through to get to the start and have our start time recorded. As the last 5k runners were crossing we had to run down and around and work our way through the crowd of 10k runners that were waiting to start in order to cross the start line and be timed. It was pretty hilarious to be the last two people to cross the start, and we even got our own special introduction of “better late than never” by the announcer.

We caught up with the other 5k runners pretty quickly though, and despite a LOT of run-walk-run due to my leg pain, we made pretty excellent time. I’m sure if Jenn had run on her own her time would have been better as she is a great runner, but I was sure glad to have someone running along side me! PLUS, I don’t think I’ve run many 5ks in under 40 minutes, so I felt very successful, even if I did limp back to the car. 😉

The route itself was really nice and ran along Tempe Town Lake. We’ve run there before but it was a different route than most of the races use, along the north shore, it was really nice to do something different. It was cool (only 66 degrees) and dark (my kind of run since we ran the Neon Run more-than-5k), and though I prefer to run on packed dirt because concrete hurts my legs, it was really nice to run at night in such beautiful weather, and I FINALLY got to cross the lake using the pedestrian bridge which is really cool at night with the lighting and architecture!

Due to the lateness of the evening, the utter exhaustion, and my wonderful husband chauffeuring us around, we did not explore any of the festivities after the run, but it sounded like they had some pretty great stuff. Maybe next time! It’s not as easy during the week.

This was my fastest pace time – EVER!

Distance: 3.12 miles
Time: 0:36:18
Min/Mile: 11:41

Check out Jenn’s race summary here!