JSRC Summer Series, week one

Our local running club holds a Summer Series, 5 weeks of 5K races on Thursday nights, for only $20! They give prizes away every week, and then a grand prize at the final race. Weekly prizes turned out to be hats or sunglasses for all the first place category winners. Sounds fun, right?
Holy heck these people were *fast*! They left me in the dust!

So let's start at the beginning. A cute 1/2 mile kid's race, and then a 1 mile kid's race, where every kid who ran got a medal. They used past race leftovers, super smart, and super cute. These kids were so proud! My friend's 5 year old ran for the first time, did the whole mile! It was the cutest darn thing I ever saw!
Now it is our turn. 85*, slight breeze, Wall Municipal Complex course, *lots* of hills. It is part of the course we ran for the Firecracker Five on July 4th. We stayed in the Complex though, and lopped around twice. NO problem, right? UGH! By mile one, I was one of the last runners, and by the finish I was the last runner. Seriously. Last. The only 2 to finish behind me were geriatric walkers. Luckily, they finished 10 minutes later. My time was just under 35 minutes, which is great. I averaged 11:09 minutes per mile, which is *amazing* for me on hills, and amazing as a training run time.
The whole time I was running, I had to positive self talk:
Holy Crap! These are huge hills, Kim, you are doing so great!
You train at the shore, this is so much harder!
You were not even running this time last year, and now look at you!
Your first hilly race, you barely squeaked in under 40 minutes!

It really did help, but seeing how few people ran in after, me, really killed me.
I feel much better today, and my goal is to beat that time next week! I am only racing against myself!
Oh...the good news? I got third place in our age group (of 3 ladies lol) and my friend Cheryl got first. She let her daughter pick the prize, and they got a JSRC Bucket Hat. If she wins next week, she can get the sunglasses!

SOOOO, now for my second review of my Active Head Band!
I wore my green sparkly one for the race, and it *didn't budge*. Not one millimeter. I was so thrilled! I got them at a Half Off sale, so I got 2 for the price of one. Right now they are about $10-$15 each. Check them out at
www.activeheadbands.com
They are not paying me for this review, they do not even know I am writing it lol.
Editing to add that on honor of her 35th birthday, the owner is having 35% off until July 15th, use the code bday35. What better time to try them out? I am going to order 2 more today, some non-sparkly ones!