Saturday, July 20, 2013

Gravity Hill 5k Race Report

I did a race today that wasn't on my schedule until a few weeks ago when an old high school friend of mine Meghan called and said that she was going to be driving through Salt Lake City and wanted to do a race with me while I was there.  We looked at different 5ks online and found the Gravity Hill 5k that is down town.  My husband grew up in this area and was familiar with the course and thought it would be beautiful course and mostly downhill.  I am always up for any race, so I was game and Meghan and I signed up and agreed to meet there that morning. 
We met at the race and it was so good to see her and her cute family!  The men and the kids were going to be the cheerleaders today and entertain the kids while we did our race.  This was a fairly small race and I was excited about how pretty it was out and I was excited to do this race!  I love 5ks!  One of these days I will quit the longer distances and focus on these smaller ones :)
Anyhow, the gun went off and I decided to race this as hard as I could.  There is an immediate uphill but it didn't last very long until it turned down a canyon from the capitol and then was downhill from there for another mile or so.  In true Katie fashion, I took off too fast and it took me a good mile to mile and a half to find a good groove and pace that was hard but manageable.  I found that I was passing many people around me, but there were also I tried to set my sights on and not let them get too far from sight and let them sort of be my pacers.  I found that the course went fast and it was fun!  It was all shaded, very pretty, and a good enough downhill to give you a good momentum, but not too much to make it dangerous, if that makes any sense at all.
 
The end of the race I tried to book it as fast as I could possibly handle.  It was a suicide sprint and it felt awesome!  I could see the clock above the finish line and it was reading 25:40 something and I really wanted a new PR, which meant I would have to beat 26:02.  I was VERY happy to see my final time came in at 25:56!  This time placed me third in my age group of 14 women and 7th overall female out of 62!
 
This race was very well done.  I honestly had no expectations thinking this was just a small local event, and there fore don't expect much, right?  Boy was I surprised!  They not only did finisher's medals (for a 5k!), but they also had awesome collapsible coolers and swag bags at the finish.  They also did age group awards with a real podium and medals for that as well!  I walked away with two medals from a 5k!  SWEET!
 
I also have never seen so much food at hardly any race that rivaled what was at the finish line for this one.  It was amazing, the volunteers were awesome, and it was just incredibly well done.  This may have landed on my yearly must do race list!
 
So, that is all for now, but it was a great race.  I love seeing successes like this in my running as I still feel that it is my weakest event, it is nice to have little confidence builders along the way like this one.
 
What's next?  Spudman Olympic Distance tri is one week away!  Then I also have the looming monster of the Utah Half Ironman just 5 weeks away.  Gulp.
 
In the meantime, Happy Training and Racing!
 




 

 

 

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on the PR and lucking into finding an awesome race venue!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on the PR and lucking into finding an awesome race venue!

    ReplyDelete