Sunshine, warmth and family. Does it … CAN it get any better? I’ll answer that: No.  Things are perfect down here in South Carolina.  Here is another recap of our days in Eden.

Sunday: Zoey and I went for a 7 mile run in the morning. Easy as she goes through the plantation and gearing up for a 5K race later in the day. I felt surprisingly good for running 18 the day before.  One thing that I’ve been meticulous about while exercising in the warm weather is hydration.  I’ve been taking this before and after my runs: Phytosport Complete Hydration.  It tastes good and rehydrates with electrolytes as well.  The Phytosport Prepare and Endure I’ve taken twice. The morning of my long run and then again this morning after running 3 consecutive days for a total of 38 miles. I really recommend these two products if you are into endurance sports.

phytosport

At 6:30pm the Brookgreen Gardens Memorial Day run was to go off.  A 5K run around the gardens. Very pretty course with some tight turns.  We got to packet pickup where they had a little owl called Luna.  So cute. Whatever type she was, she wasn’t going to get any bigger.

Luna Little owl

Sue and I wandered around for 1/2 hour waiting for the race to start.  I took off fast and then couldn’t get myself to slow it down.  In fact, my pace got better with each mile and I suffered more.  I kept thinking that if I can make myself keep going in a half marathon and a full, then I could certainly suffer through 3 miles!  Suffer I did.  It’s easy to understand why marathoners don’t like 5K’s.  They’re hard ‘cause we think the distance is insignificant and run fast.  But 3.1 miles IS significant.  It’s the distance for a lot of tempo runs. It’s a good fitness maintenance distance.  It’s just not the relaxing 3 miles that a distance runner can take to ease into a pace over the course of 26 miles.

My Garmin finished with a 3:08 total mile log so maybe it was a bit miscalculated or maybe my Garmin needs to be re-calibrated. In any event, I ran a good race.  It was limited to 400 runners. They had a 1 mile run which went off just after the 5K start. I think that 400 must have been for both races. 

The Race

I finished 3rd female over all and 1st in my age group.  I can’t find the official results on line yet but I think my time was 22:56 or 22:58. 

5K running

On my cell phone, I have an app called iRunSmart.  If you enter the results of your recent race, it will calculate predicted time for other distances as well as age grading. So look at this:

iRunSmart200

I put in the estimated 5K time and check out that Half Marathon time of 1:45:39.  Pretty close since last week I ran that half marathon in 1:45:43.  Cool!   As for the Marathon prediction, I’m not so sure about that one but it would be a TERRIFIC PR if I got any where near the 3:40.  Right now my marathon PR is a 3:44.

Sue and I didn’t stick around for awards because Zoey was at home and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet. We decided to stop at the first place where we could get in which turned out to be a poor choice: The Pavilion Cafe & Bar in the Hammock Shops. 

First, the waitress took ages to get to us for drinks.  Water, wine and ice tea. 

wine at pavilion

Next, I wanted a garden salad with oil and vinegar, blue cheese crumbles on the side.  I had to remind the waitress about the salad and when it came it was covered in bacon and NO oil and vinegar on the side! They took it back, we waited another 5 minutes and out came our dinners WITH that darned salad.

Pavilion salad

The meal: Baked flounder (in wine, no butter) with rice pilaf and vegetables. The flounder had a horrible texture and the rice was made with LOTS of butter. The vegetables were just ok.

*Warning! Nasty photo to follow ‘cause the food was pretty nasty anyway.

horrible fish

Recommendation: Don’t eat at the Pavilion in the Hammock Shop area.

Still running….since we are leaving on Tuesday, there was Memorial Day for one last run.  Zoey and I ran for 8 miles then I finished with 2 miles of strides. A total of 10 Miles and feeling really, really good.  Hoping that this means Grandma’s Marathon will give me some strong results.

One last tidbit before signing off today:  A friend in the driveway to welcome me home from my run.

Snake2

Happy Memorial Day! Enjoy!

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