Contraband Days 5 Miler 2018

On Saturday morning, I ran our area's annual 5 miler. This race usually falls on a weekend of our big hometown festival but due to scheduling conflicts, it didn't this year. Instead, it fell on the morning after our Relay for Life event. (Face palm) Since I'm on the event committee for our relay, that means that I was out at the event site from noon-midnight, setting up, participating, and tearing down the event.

Needless to say, when my alarm went off on Saturday morning after only 4 hours of sleep, I debated my first DNS race ever. Instead, something got ahold of my brain and I decided to drag myself out of bed and run the race anyway.

Everything about this race was totally unlike me, in a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of way. My outfit wasn't picked out the night before and I didn't even know if I was truly going to run the race until about 5 minutes before I left my house.

After arriving at the race site, I met up with my friend Mackenzie's husband and we lined up to start the race. It was not long into the first mile that I knew I could NOT keep up with him. My legs felt like concrete and it was all I could do to keep moving one foot in front of the other - my body had zero energy from all of the running around I'd done the day before in 90+ degree heat.

It wasn't long before I told him to go on ahead of me. I could tell I was holding him back and I hate that feeling!
 

His wife and her dad were waiting on us at mile 2 with the best and coldest water ever. It was heaven. I definitely appreciated the stop and took full advantage of it!

In the past, the water stops for this race have seemed few and far between (not this year, though), so it was nice to have them there as extra backup!

For the remaining miles, I ran until I hit the top of each mile, then I walked a couple of minutes, then began running again. It was all I could do to keep my heavy legs going.

When I knew the finish line was approaching, I somehow had a little bit of energy left in me, so I picked up the pace and ran hard in through the finish line. 

It's definitely not a PR for this race, but I don't think my overall time was half bad considering how horrible I felt!

After the race, I found my friends once again and took a few pictures!

Despite feeling like poo, it was great to spend the morning with my friends! 

Here's to the next one, which happens to be the 4th of July 4 miler. I plan to go into that race with a good night's rest and full of energy! 

Have you ever run a race on tired, dead legs?

It's the Tuesdays On The Run Linkup with Erika, Marcia and Patty.