Event review: Cocoa Women's Half Marathon/Wild Woman 5k

Turns out taking two months off and getting out of shape kinda sucks, because I would have loved to have done the half marathon and instead I was stuck with a race bib of shame..."WILD WOMAN 5K" emblazoned across the top where all the "real" runners' bibs just had the half marathon logo.

But then it also kind of doesn't, because GUESS WHO JUST PR'D?! (Assuming we don't count high school races, because after all these years I doubt I will ever run THAT fast again.)

I started out at my usual place towards the back of the pack, assuming that I'd be among the slower runners. I probably should have started in the middle instead, because I got stuck behind packs of walkers that appeared to think it's proper race etiquette to walk in formation and form a human wall from one side of the street to the other, forcing runners to squeeze by on one side or the other. I hadn't known this was an obstacle race...

But the race went smoothly and soon enough my phone app chirped that it had been a mile, and my time for that mile was 11:13. I mentally chastised myself for once again starting off a bit too fast--as I tend to do in races where most people are faster than me, since I focus more on keeping pace with the pack than running at a pace I can keep going at for miles. I told myself either mile 3 was going to feel pretty bad, or I was going to wind up slowing down too much, and hoped I could pull off the terrible-feeling third mile rather than having my time suffer.

So, for the rest of the race, I focused on trying not to slow down. When I hit mile 2, my phone told me my time was "(garbled) -en minutes, thirty seconds..." and I figured I was doing well enough as I'd only slowed down about 15 seconds. I tried hard to keep up that pace for the last mile, but it felt awful. I could tell I was slowing down, so I tried to lengthen my stride to make up for it. I didn't really hear my time for the third mile since I was close to the finish line commotion. The clock at the finish said 34:something, which I was happy enough with.

Then I checked my phone splits and saw that the garbled minutes that it had announced weren't eleven-minute splits...they were TEN minutes, 30 seconds and TEN minutes, 46 seconds. Holy crap. I haven't run that fast (assuming I'm running more than a mile) ever, in the entire past year and a half of running. My official race time was actually 32:16, since it had taken a bit to get to the start mat. So either the promise of finish-line chocolate or the mental chewing-out I gave myself over my supposedly slow running turned out to be hugely motivating!

The race itself was fantastic as well. It was my first women-only race, so it felt a bit odd to see nothing but females out there, but that didn't last long since I'm never up front with the (faster) guys anyway. The event was organized well, the course was flat and well-marked, and passed some scenic areas (La Villita, downtown buildings and so on), and the finish line food was FANTASTIC. Fruit, chocolate, tacos, chocolate, pancakes (infused with chocolate)...YUM. I'm pretty stoked the Magnolia Pancake Haus keeps showing up at these races I run as there really is nothing better than an awesome pancake breakfast after a morning run. I scarfed down my three pancakes and would've gone back for seconds, but didn't want to get in front of the other people just barely finishing and getting their firsts, so I went back for more fruit and fudge instead.

I will definitely have to keep up with the training next winter so I can do the half next year, but this race was absolutely worth it even as a 5k. I'd say this is a pretty good start to the year!