This was my first ever running race that was longer than a 5k, so my thought was just to go slow and steady and see how it went. The first mile was fine and even though it was a little chilly yet, the headband and gloves were off by the start of mile 2. Mile 2 was almost entirely uphill, and that was a big drag, but I knew that meant eventually we'd have to come back down.

By mile 4 I was starting to get pretty tired, but thankfully that was about half downhill. Then mile 4.9 was almost the same and I kicked it in a little at the end.

I was really happy to be able to run the whole thing, and best of all, no IT band pain!!

I could have started a little faster. I was very conservative for the first mile. But goal was to finish under 55:00, so I did that and was happy.

Walked around a bit, stretched some.


Being too conservative at the start, and inexperience with anything more than 4 miles. This was the first time I'd ever run more than 4 miles.


This is a very fun race and raises money for a very good cause. The family 2k is always a big hit along with the 8k. The only issue I have with this race is that we waited in the post-race water line for a good long time. A race that has this many people in it simply MUST have more than one water bottle line at the end.

(This event isn't chip timed, and no results are kept other than the first three finishers of each gender, so my results are from my Garmin.)

We couldn't stick around for the prizes, but did stop in at the LBS on the way back to the car and bought some bike jerseys. :)