Live from Holloway Park… It’s The Aching Quad Challenge…

WOW! I really wasn’t expecting to be running a live race again at least Mayfaire 2021 and that was being cautiously optimistic but here we are. Originally scheduled for September 11th and 12th this race series was moved to October 9th and 10th due to the rescheduling (and eventual virtual move) of Mayfaire 2020 (I mean really… you think I’d plan purposefully to run a 5K on my birthday and then three more races the following day…)
So, in order to run this race obviously precautions had to be taken. The race would be run in four waves of 40ish people, masks pre/post race when not able to social distance, the only provided hydrogen would be a water bottle post race, no group selfies/hugs/high fives…


Also… it is being run in a ‘bubble’ of a cross country trail instead of around a few of the city's many lakes. All well and good but aside from a few color runs which were ran on fields and didn’t count for time I’ve only ran on the road so now in addition to being aware for physical distance I have to watch my footfall to prevent tripping on roots (plus the area has some wildlife and I spoke with one of the people on the board for the running club that said she encountered a poisonous snake when she was doing a test run of the routes)




At the start of the first race was packet pick up where there was a small socially distant line of people (some with masks others not… I wore a neck gaiter from the color run for this race along with a coordinated outfit from kohl’s & my purple sparkly headband)

We received an envelope with our bib/pins, race shirt, medal and a parking pass for saturday morning so we didn’t have to pay a $10 fee

I headed back to the car to drop off my belongings and hydrate more as I had time to spare before lining up at the start. Like noted before there were four lines color coded by bibs as each wave went off the next moved up until finally it was my turn.



I was off to a rough start when at 0.03 miles my shoelace snagged and I already had to pause to fix it...I tried to pick up my pace but I could already tell running on grass/mud was going to be straining plus my lace snagged again at 0.23 miles...ugg…

At 0.92 miles I took my first “water break” with the bottle I was carrying and at 1.05 miles via my tracker I hit the one mile marker in 15:55 minutes and a projected pace of 15’02

At 2.05 I had my second “Water Stop” and 2.10 I hit marker two at 33:39 with a projected pace of 15’58 (did I mention running on grass/dirt instead of the pavement was HARD!)

By 2.30 I could hear the pace cart behind me but I didn’t want to push it too hard one because like I said the terrine and two because there were a few socially distant groups of two that it was hard to weave back and forth around

Unofficial my time was 3.3 miles in 52:03 and a pace of 15’45…Official time 52:03 and a pace of 16’44… that is a HUGE pace discrepancy between real time and my fitbit and in the wrong direction… maybe I need to invest in a new tracker??? Anyway not my personal worst time (that would be 1:15:17 for Wine & Dine 5K) and there were a few finishers behind me

One race down three to go so let’s start with Saturday morning… a bit more crowded due to a cross country meet also being run so I wore my sorcerer Mickey gaiter both pre AND post races (I did a bit of a sorcerer Mickey bound with my watermelon tank, blue fila skort and red sparkle headband)



Race one of the morning was a mile run where I ran 1.05 in 15:26 with an unofficial pace of 14’39 and an official time/pace of 15:26

Finally was a 3K


I reached mile marker 1 at 1.04 miles in 16:05 and a 15’26 pace had a ‘water stop’ in that moment. I finished with 1.97 miles in 30:58 and pace of 15’43 unofficially and 30:59 with a pace of 16’39 officially


Finally in the evening was the final race and it was HOT...I didn’t screenshot the weather but thrust me.
My OOTD for the final race was my pink Fila Skort and a Pink tank from Kohls paired with a Paint Splatter Bondi Band and my Burt Gaiter





I reached mile marker 1 at 1.04 in 16 minutes even and a projected pace of 15’16… did I mention it was HOT and my body was feeling it from the morning races? I did a ‘water stop’ at 1.08
I reached mile 2 at 2.09 in 34:01 and a projected pace of 16’13 and had a second ‘water stop’ at 2.10
My final time unofficially was 3.31 miles in 54:30 and a 16’27 pace and an official time of 54:31 and a 17’32 pace

My overall series time was 2:32:59 and I wasn’t a complete lost cause...while I was last in my age group overall there were a good two or three runners whose overall time was higher than mine
Would I do this race again in 2021? If it gets moved back to the Lakes I would definitely give it another go but I’m not planning on signing up to run any trail races voluntarily any time soon.



Now that we’ve got Aching Quad out of the way here is a wrap up of all the other odds and ends of my running as of late:
My September Marathon a Month time was 26.3 miles in 7:32:25
WDW Weekend went Virtual and I decided to go for the refund as I’m not emotionally attached enough to Oswald to spend that kind of money just to run around the neighborhood like I was with the Wine and Dine 5th anniversary 10K and Emperors New Groove 5K


UPCOMING RACES are… Virtual Womans 10K, Virtual Rock and Roll 5K, Virtual Wine and Dine 5K & 10K and The Stella Solstice 15K/8K challenge (as of now it’s still live but I suspect that by the time fees raise at the end of the month it will be announced as moving virtual as Princess weekend has already been called and that’s the same weekend)
-PRS—1M {15:26} 3K {30:59} 5K {42.46} 8K {1:13:59} 10K {1:42:52} 15K {2:19:09} HALF {3:48:35*} FULL {7:08:15*} *virtual half/full run in increments