Corrida de Corrales 5K Race Report

Last night we went to an Oktoberfest party. Carb loaded on brats, homemade pretzels, spatzle, gurkensalat, and too many desserts to name. What? That's not the most healthy pre-race dinner? NOW you tell me...

The race venue is maybe a 10 minute drive from my house, so I set the alarm for 6:40. And hit the snooze button once before getting up. No rush, it was an 8am start time.

Wasn't quite sure how to dress. I knew that the race was starting on a shady dirt surface along the acequia. It was a bit chilly in the shade (57deg), but would be much warmer in the sun if the route went took us off that path. Decided to go with capri tights and a sleeveless shirt. Turned out to be a perfect choice for the 5K. Roughly half of the race was on the dirt, and half was on the road in the sun. Love the dirt portion. The surface was uneven and I had to occasionally duck for branches. So much fun! The part on the road was in the sun and not so much fun. [I think I may be a trail runner at heart, and need to seriously think about adding real trail races into my schedule. More on that later]

The power of adrenalin never ceases to amaze me. I managed to run the 5K in 29:51 which by my calculations is roughly a 9:37 pace, something I haven't seen in training anytime recently. Plus it was a good 40 sec faster than my 5K in Feb. [Wow. Where did that speed increase come from?] It put me at 5th F40-49. Very pleased about that. [edit: 1st overall F was in the 40-49 AG, so she was removed from AG results, so I ended up being recorded as 4th in my AG]

Now some photos!

First up, a poor camera-phone self portrait. I did capture the whole ensemble post race as part of my photo project, but you'll have to wait on that.

Tables set up with post race goodies: water, apples, green chile cheese bread, cinnamon raisin bread, juice.

They gave us flags at the finish line. Here's a photo of my shadow holding mine. The wind blew the flag into the photo just as I took it, I think it turned out pretty cool.

I stayed to cheer on the remaining 5K and 10K racers. This last one is just a random photo of the finish area.

All in all, it was a really fun event. I'm glad I signed up for this one and hope to do it again next year!