Mr. and Mrs. Marathon : Run for Kids 5K

This past Memorial Day, we traveled south to Georgia to spend time with my family that lives there, and to celebrate my grandparents 67th (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) wedding anniversary! While we were in that neck of the woods, we found a 5K to try out!

Because both of us have decided that we want to focus on shorter distances, we wanted to use this race as kind of a "baseline" race to know where our fitness level is. We arrived in Georgia kind of late on that Friday, so Saturday morning came really quickly and we were running (lol) on not a whole lot of sleep. We woke up early that morning and hit the road for the 30 minute drive to Monroe, GA for the Run for Kids 5K, which benefited the local Boys and Girls Club. It boasted being "flat and fast" so we thought How bad could it be?

It was a beautiful morning, sunny and 68 degrees. We lined up and took off at 8:00 AM sharp. We noticed pretty immediately that it wasn't as flat and fast as we had thought. The course was pretty simple though. It was just an out and back one way then an out and back the other way, and it finished in the park the same way it started. Along the way it had some, ahem, "rolling" hills. It wasn't drastic elevation change, but enough that it shouldn't be considered flat. Either way, it wasn't too bad. I overcame poor eating choices from the previous day and being overly tired from not enough sleep, and I met my goal! I know I said we wanted this to be a baseline race, but I felt trained up to get close to my current record. I managed to hover around my goal pace for all 3 miles, and then I crossed the finish line with a shiny new PR of 27:30, which means I cut off 22 seconds from my previous record that coincidentally I ran at the last 5K we did in Georgia!

Finish line shot! My time was actually 27:30 though FYI

Mr. Marathon got a good feel for how much he is able to push at this point. He was tired from lack of sleep the previous night as well, and he was tired from some tough workouts during the week before the race. He was tired and sore, but he still pushed and went all out on race morning. He was hoping for a sub 20 minute finish time, and he managed to hit his goal! He finished in 19:05, which he was very happy with. We both met our goals, but to top it all off, there was tons of pizza at the finish! Oh, and we both placed 1st in our age groups! And last, but definitely not least, we got to spend a great Memorial Day weekend with my family!

This past weekend, we traveled to Baltimore, Maryland for a 10 mile race, but we will get around to a recap for that one soon enough. For now, enjoy some more pictures from our 5K!