America's Finest City--and Ugliest Race Face--5K Recap

The America's Finest City (AFC) 5K was a great race, not withstanding all the excuses I've made for my lackluster performance. The course is lovely, set inside scenic Balboa Park.

The famous tower used for ?

The Lily Pond before the infamous midnight water gun fight (for after click here). 

I was excited about the possibility of PR-ing in this race because overall, the course is pretty flat with only a few sharp corners. Instead I PW-ed. Still a great race experience. 

I ended up parking at the office and running from downtown to the starting line, which was nearly 2 miles. I took it as a warmup and arrived at the start line just 3 minutes before the gun! I used to be shy about starting near the front. But now I politely elbow my way to the front of the line.

So I was off to a good start, clocking my first mile split at 6:24. The second mile was pretty good too at a 6:28 average pace. Mile 3 began with a hill, about 0.3 miles in length, and I just never recovered from it. Fatigue settled in, and I couldn't shake it. My split on this mile was 7:00.

I've noticed that race photographers are attracted to bright shirts. Regrettably, for this race, I wore my brightest pink highlighter-colored tank. They captured me nearly 20 times in this 5K--a rate of 1 photo per minute. And in this race, I was hot, stressed, tired, and naturally, wearing the ugliest possible race face, captured over and over and over again!

Treasures.

Results: 20:45 (6:41 average pace). 7th female of 739; 1st of 128 in division F30-34; 27th overall of 1148.

LR#2
Kristen