Jetty2Jetty 5k

Jetty2Jetty! The last time I ran this race was with my parents who were both entered in their first ever fun-run.

Flashback: Jetty2Jetty 2012 with Mom and Dad

This year Chris came along to run the 3k, with David being our wonderful support crew & official race photographer (as usual). Unfortunately, Chris came up injured right before the race and had to struggle with the dilemma of to enter or not to enter. A true blue runner, she ran it anyway!

Me at the start line, doing the "Finger Dance", in honour of my mom who invented this during last year's J2J race. (She mistook my "take a picture" gesture to my friends on the sidelines as finger dancing to the music playing on the speakers...and the Finger Dance was born!)

The weather was simply gorgeous. Sunny and warm (but not hot). The gun went off and within the first 5m I had my first bit of excitement when a young boy tripped and fell almost right in front of me. He was quick to pick himself back up, with pride being his main injury. We caught this special moment on camera!

 Runner down, runner down! Fortunately he seemed unhurt and un-stepped on.

Up the hill we chugged along. I let the adrenaline carry me way too quickly for the first couple hundred metres but quickly settled into pace. My coach had set my goal pace at 5.06min/km which would be a challenge on the hills - but one I was up for! This pace was not meant to set me at a personal best but rather to prepare me for a future 5k race in August where I hope to hit out another sub-25min race. So really, goal here was to use today as a training run more than a race.

David captured this special ending on a cool rapid-fire camera. Almost as good as a video! I was allowing the momentum of the downhill to help me fly around the final corner.

 Oops! Is that a heel strike I see?

I finished in a net time of 26.25min (about 55sec slower than my set time was). But despite this, I achieved my best finisher placement yet!
I was 6th out of 111 women aged 18-29 (95 percentile). Having a top-10 finish for me is huuuuge! Who woulda thought I'd ever get there? It may not have been a pb finishing time, but it's still a "win" in my books! And what a gorgeous day for a great run.

 J2J finishers!

 A race isn't nearly as much fun without friends to share in the experience.