No, not a Phish 5K. A zoo 5K!

Official Results:
Time: 31:44
Pace: 10:13
Placing:
Overall: 44/87
Gender: 19/40

Watch Results:
Time: 31:46
Pace: 10:43
Distance: 2.96
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals: 
A: 29:59

Food:
What I ate the night before: Tandoori chicken, saffron rice, roasted cauliflower, and a German chocolate cupcake (fancy dinner for my husband’s birthday)
What I ate on race morning: Clif bar
What I carried with me: nothing

Gear:
What I wore: t-shirt, shorts, trucker hat
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker

Discussion: If you would like to PR, this is not the race.

LOL.

I saw this race pop through my Facebook feed a few days ago. My brother and sister-in-law and my nephew were in town this past weekend, and I figured this would be a fun event. We ran the 5K, my nephew ran the kids’ race, and then we got free admission to the zoo, where there was cake and a bouncy house.

I slept kind of crappy the night before the race, although still way better than I sleep before my longer races. I woke up due to a power outage (something about the absence of sound wakes me up) and it took awhile to fall back asleep, and then my cats bugged me before my alarm went off. Oh well. I was worried about getting to the race too late to get a parking spot, or there being a big line to check in. That was not an issue as there were 87 total runners. I got a spot up close and the only reason I had to wait in line to check in was the people ahead of me were asking a bunch of questions. There is an animal costume contest as well, but since we didn’t sign up til the last minute, we didn’t have costumes. There were some nice flamingos. It wasn’t required, as the race website said “Dress up as your favorite animal and participate in our costume contest or come as your beautiful self.” It’s nice to get an affirmation from a race website.

The race starts in the zoo parking lot, and wraps around the grounds of the zoo. There are actual sections that go through exhibits at the beginning. This is both good and bad. It is good because animals are awesome. It is bad because there are a lot of twists and turns. I’ll take that trade. We ran by the barnyard and had the llamas and goats out cheering for us, and then we ran by the lynx exhibit. The lynx was going nuts and running back and forth, clearly wishing to join in.

There were three big hills, as you can see from the altitude graph above, and I’m not too proud to say I walked 2/3 of them. Good for me. I ran 7.5 miles the day before, my legs were tired. Also I have no grit. We left the zoo and ran through the park where the race ended. My nephew was there with my dad and stepmother, and he was hollering encouragement at all the runners. It was very uplifting! I ran by and complained that the race was hard. We ended up on a dirt trail after than and then a short out and back on the Kingsbury Creek trail, which I’ve run several times, and then the race turned into the home stretch. All the twists and turns messed up my GPS and I actually wasn’t expecting the end so soon. We ran through a short grassy section in the park for the finish. My sister in law finished a bit ahead of me, and my brother a bit behind me, and we headed to the food tent to get some grub. The weather had heated up pretty quickly from when I left the house to when the race began – it was sunny and humid.

The food at the race was fabulous – they had glazed donuts! And goldfish crackers, which I love. My nephew was pretty pumped to get half a donut, a banana, and some of my crackers. He needed to carb up for the kids run. The kids run was fairly long – it started in the parking lot, then went around the perimeter of the park until it reached the finish line flag chute and they got to run through that. The race had various mascots on hand (UMD’s Champ, UWS’s Buzz, the Marcus Theaters popcorn box, and the tiki guy from the Edgewater resort) to lead the way, and our family spread out along the course to cheer our little dude on. He ran the whole way! And still had energy at the finish!

After the race festivities were over, we all went into the zoo. Before we could even get to the exhibits, we had to stop at the bouncy house, strategically placed right at the bottom of the stairs from the main building. Fortunately there was also cake, so we were able to eat cake while my nephew bounced around, and then we finally dragged him away to see the animals. He didn’t seem to see why it wasn’t fun for us to all stand around while he bounced in the bouncy house forever.

This race was really fun! I’ve never done a trail 5K before, and I’m not used to running fast on trails, but I enjoyed it. Obviously if I’d known what the course was going to be like, I wouldn’t have hoped to get under 30 minutes. I look forward to improving on this time next year though!