Leprechaun Dash 5k

Ran my first 5k of the season today...

5k's have not been my friend lately.  They have been hard and I have been slow.  I won this one at Winter Party ~ so I figured I'd run it.  I had a 16 miler on my schedule & I couldn't figure out the best way to get that in with a race at 11:00am on Sunday. 
I opted to run 16 on Saturday and see what Sunday brought.  I really wanted to see what I could do ~ but I didn't want to get hurt either.

I spent 20 minutes stretching really well this morning {got to the point that I could touch my toes!}, ran a 2 mile warm up {this is going to be SOP for 5k's}, and toed the line.  Kept Kelly in my sights for most of the race & just ran fast but comfortable.  I noticed that after mile 1, I was passing people.  Passed the 2 mile marker & knew & could see that the last mile was downhill. {by mile 3 Kelly was pretty far ahead}.  "I can and I am" carried me quite a while.  It just felt good today.  I was very pleased to see the clock still saying 24: when I turned to the finish.  I felt strong and capable and am very happy with my run.  The first time EVER that I have run negative splits in a 5k.

Second in my age group as well! {I could have beat the first place person, but I would have had to PR by 20 seconds}