Adel Sweet Corn 5k

It was a beautiful morning for a 5k yesterday and with the perfectly cool weather, I was hoping for a PR.

Set in the heart of a sleepy suburb of Des Moines, the race through Adel's downtown takes you on cobblestone streets, through a park and along neighborhoods. Unfortunately, I am usually looking at who is in front of me rather than taking in the scenery on a 5k!

The course did have some easy, sloping hills, probably three different significant rolling hills, which are not my strong point. Must train more hills!

Check in was at the middle school and the race starts right outside the school. They had chip timing, and a place to drop bags, which was nice.

The only problem was - they didn't roll out the mat for the chip timing at the starting line?? I didn't worry about getting terribly close to the start line because I figured it didn't matter, so it probably took me a good 20 seconds to cross the start line.

We turned the corner and the first thing I saw was a hill! They were not particularly steep, but they were long. I had a moment of panic thinking about how the hill right off the bat in the Urbandale 5k killed my legs, but took a deep breath and just looked a few feet in front of me. Before you know it the first mile ticked off in 7:10. I thought if I could hold on to a 7:30 pace the next two miles, I could PR.

I tried to slow down a bit as I didn't want to die on the last mile, and the 2nd mile was run in 7:26. Then in the third mile, we started off in another hill. And I was pretty tired by this point, and my stomach felt like a lead brick. By the time I got up the hill I was at an 8 min mile pace. I was not happy, but remembered my final mile pace at my last 5k PR was 7:52. I was able to speed up and complete the 3rd mile in 7:46. At this point my total time was 22:21 for three miles.

At this point this lady that had been sneaking up on me, and I suspected was in my age group passed me. I tried to kick it in, thinking I needed to try to hold on to first in my age group, but I just didn't have any kick left.

I forgot to stop my watch at the finish line, but I was disappointed to see 23:40 on the clock as I was approaching the line. Since the didn't have the timing mat down at the beginning of the race, I don't know my "real" time - but the only time that counts is the one on record....23:47.

So no PR. My Garmin measured the distance at 3.22 miles, and a friend that also ran it, had 3.2 miles. So if you count the extra tenth of a mile, my average pace was faster in this race :)

I ended up 2nd in my age group, 7th female, and 51st place overall.