carnegie VFD 5K recap

Saturday marked my third Carnegie 5K, benefiting my little borough's volunteer fire department. For a small borough, the race is always well attended. It's even becoming a sort of tradition among my friends to do it together, since it's a well organized race with a low entry fee and a nice course through the ever more revitalized downtown Carnegie area. 

It threatened to rain all morning, and we had a few drops at the beginning of the race, but not enough to really make a difference. Ironically the weather turned beautiful just an hour or so after it was all over, but I'm glad it didn't get rained out. (You can tell it was cold from this group photo, since we're all hunkered down just a little bit. And yes, my legs were freezing. Good choice for the actual run, but standing around waiting for door prizes afterward, not so much.)

I was pretty proud of my performance, with it being the first short race of the year. I came in at 28:55, 41 seconds off of my PR of 28:14 that I set at the Armed Forces 5K in Erie last July. But realistically, none of my PRs have ever come early in the racing season, since I'm coming off of winter laziness. I'm also trying to train myself to run to my heart rate, not a particular pace. My shoes are just about ready to give out, which I started to feel more acutely this weekend. Just one more week until they are retired!

It was nice to have a low pressure, casual race before this weekend's Pittsburgh Half where I want to push for that personal record. Thanks to the generosity of friends and family, I've made it over the $600 mark for my Run for a Reason fund. Less than one week left, but there's still time to donate!