San Jose Sharks Fitness Faceoff 5k and my new PR

I decided last minute to register for the San Jose Sharks Fitness Faceoff.  They had a 5k and 10k available.

My reasoning for choosing the 5k:

• It has been over a year since the last time I ran a 5k because I always choose the 10k or longer distances.
• My area was in the middle of a heat wave and the quicker I could get out of the sun and heat the better since it was suppose to be 100 degrees that day.
• We were leaving for Tahoe (5 hour drive) that day so I needed a quick race.
• The race was only 15 minutes from my house, so it was a quick race with an easy location.
• Since I haven’t ran a 5k in ages I was curious to see what kind of time I could pull off.

I am so happy I signed up the day before and ran the 5k distance!

The race started right next to HP Pavillion a.k.a. “The Shark Tank”.  For those that don’t know, the San Jose Sharks are a hockey team.

I got there, parked and walked to the starting line.  The Shark’s Zambonis that clean the ice for the hockey games were out at the starting line which was fun.

The San Jose Shark’s mascot SJ Sharkie was out too, also fun.

The 10k started first at 8:00am and we started with the 5k at 8:15am.  I felt good and my plan all along was push myself hard enough where I felt I could keep going, but knew I only had 3 miles to do.  It was kind of weird since I am so used to 13.1 miles and the mindset of saving energy to finish the distance.

I was watching my time which was pretty consistently a little over and under 8 minute miles.  I was pretty happy about this.  I ended up with a PR of 24:52!!! Woohoo!  I don’t think I have EVER been on page 1 of race results before!

I was the 16th female to finish and I was 6th for my age division.  It was a 1,000 person race so I was pretty happy about this since I’m normally a midpack runner.  My normal speed for a half marathon is between 9:30-10:45 min miles.

I am so glad I last minute decided to run this race and I won’t rule out 5ks in the future.  Not to mention the race bling was super cute too.  It is actually metal and looks like a little Sharks jersey.

I wonder if I can ever beat that PR…:)