Cedar Point 5k!

It's no secret that I was brought up to LOVE Cedar Point, so when I heard that there was a 5k race there, I was immediately SOLD! I've wanted to run at CP for a long time and almost entered a half marathon there last winter, but...well, WINTER at CP sounds miserable. So an early summer race past all my favorite coasters was just perfect! I picked my race packet up Saturday afternoon, then headed to the park to ride a few coasters. Wayne arrived a few hours later with the RV, the kids and the rest of the family. We had a late dinner and went to bed later than normal, so I was worried I'd be really tired for the race. And of course, I did my usual night-before-a-race-wake-up at 3:30am...I just get so darn excited that I can't sleep! And it was POURING down rain all night long...I wasn't thrilled about running in the rain, but after 13.1 miles in pouring down rain a few months ago, 3.1 miles in the rain shouldn't be a problem, right? Well, miracle of all miracles...the rain stopped just as I was leaving the camper to head to the race! YES!

The men's race started at 7am, followed by the women at 7:30...that was weird...I've never done a separate race like that, but I assume they did it to alleviate congestion around the park. The men took off, I took a little jog, did some stretching, my usual pre-race-potty-stop and then headed to the start. It wasn't a huge race, maybe 400ish people, but SO MANY of them were YOUNG kids. The race was to support 3 local cross country teams, so I'm sure many of the teams were there, but boy did I feel old lining up next to a bunch of high schoolers! I kept reminding myself of "the game plan"...I've become notorious for going out too quickly and then not having ANYTHING left at the end, so I was really hoping to just stick to MY race plan and not worry about all the KIDS passing me at the start.

Go time! The horn sounded and we were off, splashing through puddles in the CP parking lot. The first turn headed us directly into some pretty intense wind, but after that stretch it wasn't too bad. Most of the first mile was around the parking lot, then we were in the park zooming past Gatekeeper, through Planet Snoopy, past Dragster, Magnum and Maverick and then we turned around just before the Mean Streak and headed back up through Frontierland by Millenium Force. The final stretch was down the main drag and we finished next to the carousel near the entrance. My plan was to average around 8:00 minute miles for the first two miles, then crank it up a bit for the last mile.

Mile 1: 7:54
Mile 2: 8:09
Mile 3: 7:42
Mile 0.1: 6:02 -- I probably had a tad too much left over at the end and could have ran a bit harder, but it felt good to "kick it in" for once, rather than die at the end!

Official results: 5k in 24:02 -- which is a post-kid PR by almost half a minute! WOOT! My time was good enough for 2nd in my age group, 28th female overall. When I crossed the finish and saw 24:02 I was like "DANGIT! Just a little faster and I could have been in the 23:00's!" But I'll take it. The coolest part of this race was all the swag -- cute Snoopy tech-shirt, all finishers got a medal, plus since I placed I got another medal AND fast passes! SWEET! There was some confusion at the end about the fast passes, but otherwise, this race was awesome...definitely a really cool experience. And I can totally see Kaitlyn running this race with me in a few more years. Very fun!

The finish!! 

 Post-race with my new 'friends'!