Women Run the Roc 5K Recap

Sunday, July 27th I ran the Women Run the Roc 5K. I believe this year was the second year for this race, and it is a 5K geared toward women, and one lucky guy! Since it's a race for women, instead of giving the first 500 registrants a t-shirt, the women got a custom Women Run the Roc SweatBandy! What a great idea, I for one was all for this idea as it is something I will use over and over again.

Friday before the race, I went to packet pick up during my lunch hour. I was able to sneak out of work a few minutes early and beat the crowd. I'm sure glad I did, not only did I have like 7 bibs to pick-up, but by the time I was done, there was a line across the room.

(Ours bibs and sweaty bands! So cute!)

Sunday morning I drove to Nita's house and we drove to the race together. The weather was great, and it wasn't too hot out. The forecast was showing it to be around 70 degrees for the race. Nita and I had also talked before hand and decided that we were going to run an additional six miles after the race to complete the nine miles needed for training. We met up with our friends that were running the race, two of my co-workers were running the race, and my co-workers daughter was also running. We hung out and chatted for a bit before we walked over to the starting line.

(Pre-race selife!)

(Waiting to start)

As we waited to start, Nita and I decided to try and stick together during the run, and use a 1:1 run/walk interval. Shorty thereafter, they set us free and we were off! The first part of the course took us over a footbridge by High Falls. This is one of my only complaints... this should have been near the end of the course instead. This bridge has staggered benches and since we were still all clustered together, we were all weaving in and out of the benches and around each other.

Finally, we all started spread out and Nita and I settled into a comfortable pace. The course starts and ends at Frontier Field, takes you across the High Falls Bridge, around Liberty Pole Way and down Main Street. It wasn't too far into the race when it started to warm up quickly, and it became quite humid. Nita and I made it just about a quarter of a mile from the finish, and I started to get a cramp in my side, so I told her I was going to walk one more interval, but told her to go on ahead and finish strong. I think we may have finished 45 seconds apart. My final time on my watch was 36:33, not bad considering it ended up being so humid, and my watched marked me .17 miles more than the 5K, probably due to the weaving in and out of people and the benches.

(Hanging with my co-workers, they're the best!)

Nita handed me a cup of water, and we slowly made our way to the finisher area where there was fresh fruit and bagels. Nita and I went for the oranges, and then decided it would be a great idea to take a picture with the orange slices in our mouths. Let me just tell you... Before deciding on a picture, I had already grabbed the largest orange slices I could find in the bowl, so trying to get it into and out of my mouth caused fits of laughter. I was doubled over laughing so hard I was crying and trying not to choke on this orange slice! We hung out for a short time after that and decided that running the extra 6 miles in the heat was not going to be a good idea. Instead, we decided to grab breakfast to refuel.

(Yummy!! Took the picture after I ate all the avocado off my sandwich, oops!)

This was a great race, especially since it was geared toward women. Everyone was so encouraging from the staff and volunteers to the other runners encouraging each other. I really like that this race's "swag" is a SweatyBand instead of a shirt. Like I said before, a SweatyBand is something that I will use for future runs (believe me, I have a collection of them)!

QOTD: Do you have a favorite piece of race swag, or even a favorite race shirt?