8K Recap: Briggs & Al's Run!

Today was the 8K Briggs and Als Run for Children's Hospital.  I ran this event several times back in college, on a team sponsored by an old cross-country friend's dad.   Then there were several years that I didn't run it until last year.  My goal this year was to place in the top 100, as I missed it by 5 people last year.  I think it would have been great to beat last year's time too.

All in all it was an ok race.  I ran a 32:17.7 which is 5 seconds slower than last year (32:12.9), however, I placed 87th overall so that was great.  I was 10th woman overall, and still second in my age group.  (In fact, the woman who won it overall is the same woman who won the 5K I ran last Saturday!)

I started having a sore throat yesterday and the post nasal drip woke me up at 4AM.   I had a grande sized coffee from Starbucks and a few sips of water before the race.  I was standing near the start thinking about how dry my mouth was.  NOT the most brilliant pre-race plan.  We were running into the wind when about 0.5 miles in, my favorite blue running hat flew off my head.  I kept going but heard "Did someone lose a hat?"  I turned around and saw a guy holding my hat! I freaked out and said, "I did!!" and he sprinted up to give it to me.  Not sure how much that little snafu cost me, but at least I had my hat back!

I sucked water at each of the 3 water stations, but have felt thirsty ALL day.  (The post-race cheeseburger probably didn't help matters!).

My Garmin had the race at 5.06 miles, with a 6:24 avg pace/mile.  I was sort of all over the place with mile splits though:

Mile 1: 6:03
Mile 2: 6:34
Mile 3: 6:20
Mile 4: 6:40
Mile 5: 6.24

Interestingly, if you look at my Garmin data from last year, my pace was actually 3 seconds/mile faster this year.  Last year's mile splits were:

Mile 1: 6:22
Mile 2: 6:44
Mile 3: 6:24
Mile 4: 6:29
Mile 5: 6:16

Mile 4 sorta sucked this year :)

My favorite moment of the race was actually when it was over and I was standing my the finish looking for family members and friends who also ran and I saw a little boy, maybe 3 years old, get out of his wheelchair cart that the Angels were pushing for him and toddle through the finish.  My eyes filled with tears.  The slogan of this year's race was "for the kids" and that is the image I will take with me from this race.