Race Recap: AFLAC Iron Girl 15k

Last Saturday, I set out to tackle my first 15k race. I was kind of worried because I've done very little running since my half marathon so I felt very unprepared. Nevertheless, on race day morning I tightened my laces and headed off to Pier 60!

After FINALLY finding a parking space, I got out of the car and decided to run with my camera so that I could take pics along the course. Once I got all the way downstairs, I turned my camera on only to discover that it kept giving me some weird error message and wouldn't take pictures! FML. Then I turned Gabby the Garmin on, only to have her flash a "low battery" warning at me. Seriously? You couldn't tell me that last night? *Sigh*

Post race but we'll pretend it's a view of everyone lining up lol
After warming up I got as close as I could to the starting line and a short time later we were off! The course runs up and over the causeway and I really enjoyed the views across the bay and of the sunrise. Then we ran down a street before turning into a neighborhood. Somewhere around mile 4 I spotted my friend M, who was in mile 7 and getting ready to head back towards the finish line. M is amazing, she ran her first marathon earlier this year and ran it with a BQ time. Who does that???

Anyhoo... it was around this time that I realized that I had to pee but there were no porta-potties in sight. I figured I had just missed them but since the course looped through the neighborhood twice I didn't freak out because I figured I'd be able to stop on my second time around. Ummm... no. Can you believe there were NO portapotties on the frigging course?!? Well, correction... there was one set at mile 1.5, which was also mile 8 #FAIL.

One the way back across the causeway I was feeling so good that I was actually singing along with Beyonce and Rhianna, which I'm sure annoyed the heck out of the other runners since I can't sing lol.

Finishing time 1:51:25.

The lack of training showed because my finishing time was more than 5 minutes off from my 15k split during the half marathon. Still, I'm glad for this experience because it taught me that you can't brush off any distance race if you want to have constant improvement (like I do).

I had some issues with the logistics of this race and I made sure to submit feedback to the race directors via email. But I still plan on running this race next year because it's one of the last distance races of more than 5k in my area until the fall.