Citrus Summer Showdown

Hello Everyone!


So, this past Saturday I ran in another race. This makes 2 races in 2 weeks! This race was the Inverness Citrus Summer Showdown which is a 5K trail run in Inverness, FL. I ran this same race last year, and I must say that this is a TOUGH race. This year though, I had the pleasure of my mom doing the race with me as this was her 2nd ever 5K. The best part about this race is that it is completely FREE. That's right F-R-E-E, FREE!

We were running behind and did arrive at the race site pretty late. I basically had time to get my bib number, get my chip timing device, go to the bathroom, and then off to the starting line! My friend Grant was supposed to be running this event also, but he got sick the night before and decided to skip it. Me and my mom did not get to line up together at the starting line though as the women started their race 15 minutes after then men did.

As the race started I took off with the pack! About a quarter mile into the race I looked down at my Garmin and saw I was running at a 6:30 mile pace. I thought "What the hell am I doing!!" and proceeded to slow my pace down (this way I could FINISH the race - LOL) I passed the 1 mile mark at 7:48 and was feeling wonderful. About another half a mile in, at around the half-way mark, I came to the only water station on the course where I decided to go ahead and take a cup. I did however only take a small sip of the water then doused my head with the rest of the cup. This felt GREAT as trail runs in Central Florida during the midst of summer do not bring about good temperatures or humidity! I finished the 2nd mile in 8:04 and was starting to feel pretty tired. The final mile was dragging on as my body was becoming more and more tired as I am not used to running on trails and keeping an eye out on the trail for roots and other things to make you lose your footing. I finished the 3rd mile in 8:09 and was ready for the race to come to an end. I finally crossed the finish line in a total time of 24:11, which is actually my 4th best 5K time to date (nothing to complain about). I then went and met my dad and my two sons as I awaited my mom to cross the finish line. She eventually reached the line and finished in a little over 52 minutes. This was about 1 minute slower then her 1st ever 5K but I was very proud of her as this was probably by far the hardest course she will ever do AND she had not really trained at all for.

I finished the race in 83rd overall out of about 300 runners. I was the 30th place "Adult" as this race is broken down into Middle School, High School, College, and Adult instead of the regular 5 year age groups. This race is actually full with a lot of high school aged kids as a lot of school's have their cross country teams come out and participate in this race and get them ready for the upcoming season.

We then gathered the troops and went out for a nice breakfast before coming home for the day.

I will soon be posting some pictures from one of my recent training runs where I just went out and relaxed on a nice 10 mile run.

Til next time!