Bunny Boogie Results

by Bryan on 3/22/2008 at 12:59 PM in Health and Fitness

Julie and I ran the Bunny Boogie 5K this morning at Trinity Park in Fort Worth. It was an absolutely great morning for racing, with the temperature in the low 50s, and lots of sunshine.

After eating Tex-Mex last night, along with a couple of margaritas and a glass of wine, I was uncertain of how the race would go today, and waking up with my stomach gurgling was not a great sign. Fortunately things subsided, and we headed out to the race.

I knew from looking at past results that this would be a very small race (100-150 people tops), but that's just what I was looking for, and we were both excited to not have to deal with the massive crowds of walkers bunched up at the starting lines of most of the really big 5Ks. Once we arrived, we grabbed our bibs, pinned them on, checked out the course map, and then warmed-up. As it was nearing the start-time, we caught up with our coworker, Darren, and his 7-year old son, Aidan, who was running his 2nd 5K. After a few words from the race director, we were off.

We started a little ways back from the starting line, not wanting to push our luck and get passed by too many people, which ultimately cost us a little time, but not too much. As is typical, I think everyone started off a little faster than they wanted to. At one point, I looked down at my Garmin and saw a sub 8:00/mile pace—definitely too fast! Within a couple of minutes I had brought the pace back up to a more manageable 8:45-9:00/mile, and was able to maintain that for most of the way.

The plan for today's race was to go for a new PR, and I set a pace in the Garmin of 28:30, which would've been a new PR by 15 seconds. However, I found myself feeling pretty strong and pacing behind a guy at around 8:50-9:10, so I let myself stay slightly ahead of my goal pace for a little while. After several minutes, my "rabbit" slowed considerably, so I surged on ahead in search of a new rabbit. Luckily for me, he was just 20 yards ahead. I followed my new rabbit for the majority of the race, until he finally picked up the pace in the last half mile, and left me eating his dust. But that was okay, as I had been holding steady to an 8:55/mile pace and was still feeling good—just not good enough to stay with him as he upped his tempo. The good news is that I wasn't passed by anyone in the last half of the race or more, and I was able to pass several people, including a couple towards the end. And unlike the Cowtown 5K, I did not try to kick too soon. This time, I focused on maintaining my pace right up until the final .11 mile, and then surged with a controlled and maintainable (at least for a couple of minutes) pace of 7:43/mile.

At the finish, my Garmin reported a time of 27:30, so I will call that my chip time, since this race didn't utilize timing chips. My official time was 27:45, good for 2nd place in my age group (35-39), and a new PR by 1 minute!

After finishing, I walked back up the course a little ways to cheer on everyone else, including Aidan, Julie, and Darren. Aidan was the next of our group to finish, with a time of 31:16, which was good for 1st place in his age group! Then came Julie, a few seconds behind Aidan, finishing 3rd in her age group, and finally Darren, who did a magnificent job setting the early tempo for Aidan.

All in all, this was fun day, and something I think we'd like to do again—this race, as well as more small races! I should have some pictures of Julie and me with our medals to post a little later.

Here are my splits from the Garmin:

Here are the official results: Bunny Boogie 5K 2008. Looks like I need to email the RD and let him know he's got a 35 year old female in the 25-29 year old age group. Julie really did finish 3rd in her group.

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