Race Report: Licking County Pet-A-Palooza

(Crossposted from Facebook with a few changes)

My second 5K, the Licking County Pet-A-Palooza in Granville was this morning. Most of my runs lately have been at around a 10:30 pace for 5 or 6 miles, so I figured I’d shoot for a 9 minute mile. I bested that by about a minute, unofficial time was 26:02. I was the third female.

Lizzie the greyhound came to watch. I thought about running with her but I really wanted to race this one. She was happy to go though, since there were pet expo booths she got a lot of treats and attention. I’ve taken her on a few shorter runs and she loves it, she just has to stop occasionally. She really can’t do more than two or three miles. Gigi stayed home. She’s getting old, unfortunately, and tends to get overwhelmed when there are a lot of people around and a lot of activity.

The weather was perfect, in the 70s, a little windy. It was a small field to begin with, I’d guess around 100 people, about a third of them walkers. The top three men and women got gift cards to a running store. So, I’m on track for my goal time and as runners start to come back I count four women ahead of me. With one mile left one stops to walk. Then all of a sudden there’s a ponytail flapping around about 50 yards ahead of me. I book it, pass her, and come in third! 26:02 was what the clock said, I’m hoping with chip timing my official time will crack 26, since I started near the back of the pack!

I’ve actually been following a 10K training program. The Hocking Hills Indian Run is Sept. 18. It’s going to be a rough one… no out and back course on a flat road. This one goes up and down hills and through a creek. I can run 6 miles. I can run on hills. Once a week I do quarter mile repeats on the treadmill at 7 to 10 grade. I’m just nervous about running 6 miles on hills, because this course looks purely evil, (just the green line, hard to believe people will actually run 30+miles on that thing!)!

Am I completely insane that I’m considering a half marathon already? Because I did use my gift card to buy a fuel belt at Star Power Running, which is a really cool little specialty store here in town, just in case I want to try a few longer runs!