Mary Shepherd ran the Sunrise Series #7–Riparian Preserve 5K, finishing this distance in the time of 32:18.
This is the last 5K of a series put on over the summer months here in the Valley. This was my 3rd one this year. And as with my other two 5Ks I ran this one faster than the same race last year. I had hoped to break 30 minutes, but when I saw the temps predicted I knew that would not be possible for me. Even adjusting for the heat and humidity, I was still “slower” than what the adjustment gave me (although less than a minute total overall). But, I seemed to run well, HR stayed a pretty constant 146ish, got a slight negative split and felt pretty strong throughout. Stats are pretty good. First, my time was more than 3 minutes faster than last year. Even that mysterious missing 0.1 mile would not account for that much improvement. I was 288 of 708 total runners (yay!), 123 of 430 female runners (double yay!) and 2/10 in my age group (woopee!). As usual I was about 3 minutes behind the age group winner, but 3 minutes ahead of 3rd place (who usually is really close to my time). About the first mile of this course is through the preserve–pretty shaded, on concrete and packed gravel trails. The last 2 miles are mostly along a canal so less shaded. This is a race you can start early and I would estimate about 3/4 of the runners started early, before 5:45 with the remaining starting in a mass start (not very mass) at 6:30. All in all, a good race for me, particularly after a HM the previous week.
