Stockton Alunmi Legacy Fund 5K

In an attempt to get my butt moving more often I signed up for a bunch of races; I think I have 4 in the next 6 weeks or so.  The first was this past Sunday at my alma mater, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.  I sent an email to all my running friends but most of them already had plans.  Luckily my sister was free so we met at the school's athletic building around 8:30am.  I was surprised to see the other runners wandering around with numbers in the 1900s, I didn't think this was going to be a big race.

I was extremely apprehensive about the 3.1 miles because I really haven't been running much lately.  Seriously, I have only been doing about 2 miles twice a week.  I'm petrified of my 10K next weekend.  Anyway, we went to get our numbers and realized it was a small race, everyone had numbers in the 1900s and nothing below!  We were impressed by the event so far, registration was very organized and we were given really nice dri-fit running shirts, hats & pedometers for attending!

Shana was pretty bummed when she saw her number though.  My sister is a math teacher and for some reason prefers her race bibs have numbers that are evenly divisible by 3.  Her 1919 is not but my 1920 was, maybe it would be good luck? 

After a short speech by the race organizer we were off.  The college is set on a pretty densely wooded area and it was nice to run on trails in the shade instead of my normal up and back on the boardwalk in the sun.  I could definitely feel that I had lost my stride though, at about half way I was tired and couldn't catch my breath, I was seriously rethinking attempting next weekend's 6 miles.  Thankfully I felt better around mile 2.  I always thought it was crazy when Angela would say she doesn't get comfortable until after mile 2 but I think the same may be happening to me.  As I came up to the track I was told I was almost done.  I was shocked, I checked my watch only to see that I still has almost a 1/2 mile left, we must have to run the track once.  Nope, I crossed the finish line at 28:35 with 2.78 miles completed, they mis-measured the distance, not a full 5K.

Shana met me at the finish line and we compared notes; she was pretty bummed because she was on track for a PR.  We got some water & a snack then sat down to wait for the winners to be announced.  I always stay when it's a small race, you never know when you might place.  It was evident immediately that the race organizers did not do a good job with the placing.  They were calling people up and all the ages were wrong, Shana was called at 3rd place for 30-39, she's 27!  We stayed just to see how it all panned out but a lot of people were angry.  

I asked a coworker that plans races how much it costs to hire a company to do your timing and he said maybe $300, hopefully the alumni fund goes that way next year.