Candy Corn Dash 5K

Another race is in the books.  And after watching the last two races from the sideline, I was finally back in the competition. This weekend we tackled the Candy Corn Dash. The race was a fundraiser for a local child advocacy group.  I loved the logo...who doesn't love candy corn people??

The race was billed as a run/walk and it was nice to be in a race with a greater percentage of walkers.  Out of the 85 competitors I placed 55 and had an official time of 45:13.  According to my Garmin watch my time was a bit faster and the distance was a tad more than a 5K.  I think they might everyone might have had the same start time regardless of when they crossed the "start" line. 

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	44:59.3	3.21	14:00
1	13:31.8	1.00	13:32
2	14:15.2	1.00	14:15
3	14:16.7	1.00	14:17
4	2:55.5	0.21	13:47

(Sorry, I had a ton of trouble placing this...but it gives you the idea)

I was very excited by my mile times.  I have only walked once in the past month, so I wasn't sure I would do my best.  Although, it wasn't officially a PR for my 5K, I had my fasted mile according to my watch.  There is definitely a speed benefit when you have competition.  I targeted a racer until I passed them and then picked a new target. 


Turns out I had been targeted as well.  When a guy caught up to me he said he had been trying to catch me for a mile and a half.  That made me feel kind of good.  Okay, he was 67 years old, but at least I made the old guy work for it :)  We ended up walking together the rest of the race.  We chatted and encouraged/challenge each other to keep a hot pace.  At the end of the race, I introduced him to my husband and it turns out they had worked together back in the 90s.

When we lined up at the start I was somewhere near the middle of the pack because so many people went to the back.  When the race started much of the front of the pack ran. I knew there were lots of people behind me.  I kept waiting for a pack to pass me, but there were only a few people that passed me. On my way back I saw quite a few people just casually walking.  It was a beautiful day for walking.

We have limited racing experience but this race was probably the most glitchy so far.  The biggest issue we encountered didn't affect me.  However, it was definitely an issue for my husband. We were told at the beginning of the race that the course was an out and back. Go to the water station - turn around and come back.  Pretty simple, right?  Well, my husband was running third.  The two frontrunners went around a curve and then he met them coming back. When he made the curve he ended up passing two ladies walking out to set up the water station.  So he ended up running farther than he was supposed to because he didn't see a mark on the path - he was looking for a water station.  When he passed me on his way back he mentioned that he'd run too far because the water station wasn't set up. When I got to the water station, I mentioned that my husband had run too far.  One lady says to me "that was your husband?"  And the other lady says "no, I don't think that was your husband."  What??  Why would she say that - she didn't know either of us?  Why would she doubt that he was my husband?  It was one of the oddest things.  Thankfully, that glitch did not affect the outcome of my husband's race - he would not have been able to catch the other two guys anyway.

I felt bad for the race organizers.  There were also a couple of glitches with the timing of the race.  At one point we looked at the posted standing and my husband wasn't even listed, although we knew he had come in third.  Turns out they had looked at the number wrong and recorded him as 621 instead of 521.  When we noticed it we headed over to the timer's tent and they were already working on fixing the mistake.  I guess they realized my husband did NOT look like a Mallory :)


When they brought the results over to the announcer there must have been another issue because the timer headed back to their truck and the winner announcements were delayed another 10 minutes or so. 


We knew that my husband had placed third overall and the overall winner was the exact same age.   They had announced that there would be a medal for first in each age group.  All of the races we had been to previously did not include the overall winner in the age group standings.  So we thought he might get the age group medal.  Turns out they didn't separate the overall winner, so no medal for my husband :(  What bummed me out on the organizers' behalf was that of the six age group winners only one had stayed to collect their medal. So there the poor girl stood with an armful of uncollected medals.  A bit anti-climatic.
 

Hopefully, this race will continue to grow and they will work out the details as they get more experience.  I would definitely do it again for the cause if nothing else.


I was happy with my performance, but I definitely felt the pain of not training. My poor feet and legs were killing me and I had a tough time sleeping that night. My sweet husband gave me a massage in the morning and that helped considerably.

Sunday afternoon my sister and I had some fun sister time.  A friend gave us some tickets to the St. Louis Rams game.  We had fourth row seats...I wouldn't ever spend that much money, but it was fun to have the opportunity.  It was a good game even if it didn't end the way we wanted :(

We had a good time in spite of almost drowning in a sea of Dallas Cowboys fans.  Granted we were on the visitors' side of the field, but I was stunned at the number of Cowboys jerseys we saw at the game - it had to be more than half the crowd. 

Jerry Jones even seemed to be holding court at our stadium.

I took a few pictures on the bridge as we crossed over into Missouri. I had a good opportunity since my sister was driving.

I was intrigued by this building.  A pretty fancy factory. 

My eating was a complete disaster this weekend.  I have to get myself together!!!  It is a bit frustrating that despite doing so well with control and making good choices for months, bad eating can come back like you haven't learned a single thing about healthy eating.

Today I am back it :)   Happy Monday!