A Perfect Promise…Promise Run 2023

Well, that was fast. I’m off to the races again and back at it for the ninth annual Promise Run, the first after a two year virtual hiatus.

The race is run through the local cancer center and for a brief moment I pondered wearing an honor bib for a podcast host who recently lost his battle with Leukemia, however at the end of the day it seemed kind of weird.

It took a bit to settle on an ootd however after seeing a time hop post from 2019 saying how I miserable I felt due to heat I decided to dress cooler in my leopard print Livi tank, navy blue old navy shorts and “my not today vecna” bondi. I rewore my newer sneakers that I wore for the 15K as I’d done an additional 3.5 miles in them mid week and they were much more comfortable.

I didn’t know if any issues from the week before would flair up and so my goal was just to finish, preferably under an hour.

I arrived at the staging area around 8:02 and created a playlist of songs to put on shuffle to prevent me from being distracted with skipping things and so I could have variety instead of just one album (though most of the Encanto and Goofy Movie soundtracks seemed to be included)

Then at 8:20 I was in the actual shoot. There is no seeding it was just announced “award contenders in front, leisurely joggers in the middle and walkers in the back” I was in the middle 

They also said hydrate because they didn’t know how hot it would get but according to my weather app it was 75 feels like 78 with 86% humidity 

The other comment I laughed at was one about getting up this early to run this (I’m back at or en route to my room by 8:20 am during Wine & Dine)

I crossed the start mat at 8:35 and felt as if I was making decent strides… I was moving at what I thought was a brisk run and I wasn’t in pain so yea!!!

I soon however let nature distract me slowing to take a break of a group of pelicans

A few moments later course marshals waved for runners to merge right so that the front runners could make it down the opposite lane.

Seventeen minutes later I was at mile one 

After a good five minutes of being in a slow moving single lane parade of walkers (starting just before the mile marker) the course opened up only for in another five minutes to be greeted by the brick road.

In past years I have dinged my ankle running and with not wanting my injury to flair up I knew I’d be slowing down again for another five minute interval before reaching pavement again. But there was no speeding up quite yet as I grabbed some water from the water stop. I did have a bottle as well so I was properly hydrated.

Eighteen minutes later (thirty five total) I finally reached mile two.

I kept moving forward reaching my PR point with about .60 left to go…

I dropped my empty bottle into a trash can and took another bird pic

And then it was that final uphill stretch before hitting mile three in another seventeen minutes (fifty two minutes total)

My final time was 53:45 which was higher than my split in last weeks 15K, lower than the 8K and on average of my last ten 5Ks overall… still a good 10 mins over my PR of 42:46 from April 2019 which I still feel is a fluke due to taking copious amounts of photos and having my Fitbit register less than 3.1

CHALLENGES:

I'm 408.31 miles of 2023 for Run The Year

For the Month of March there is also a streak challenge and so I've already received the following...

For a three day monthly step streak (four days total)

For a Seven Day Step Streak (Eight Total)

Right now I'm at a Nine Day overall step streak with my longest streak of the year so far being 63 days.....

Upcoming races:

3/25: Bonnet Springs 5K

4/14: Springtime Surprise 5K

4/15: Springtime Surprise 10K

4/16: Springtime Surprise 10 Miler

5/13: Mayfair 5K

Race PRs

1M {15:26} 3K {30:59} 5K {42:46} 8K {1:13:59} 10K {1:42:52} 15K {2:19:09} HALF {3:54:55} FULL {7:08:15*} *virtual full run in increments