18th Annual Chester County Race Against Violence 5k Recap

This race was awesome! It totally made up for the not-so-awesome-first-5k experience last weekend and I'm so thrilled about it. First we had to do some obligatory pre-race pics, complete with grouchy grammy photo bomb...

This was our "team;" we got a slightly cheaper registration fee if we got five people to make a team, so Joe's sister rounded up two of her friends to complete our group. The race was organized by and benefited the Crime Victims' Center of Chester County.

We started almost exactly on time (8:30am), which was pretty great since we didn't have to stand around waiting for too long. We also walked to the starting point (the courthouse in West Chester), so that was a great warm up and we didn't have to worry about parking. The weather was absolutely perfect; it was around 50 degrees and sunny when we started and I didn't spend the entire first mile shivering like I did last weekend.

The course itself was perfect too. We ran on either paved streets or sidewalks the entire time and there were minimal hills. It was marked really well for the most part, although at one point a small group ended up going the wrong way and coming up a bit short on distance at the end.

I used my Map My Run app to make sure that I ran the complete distance this time and it ended up coming out to 3.14 miles in 30:49. That's a PR! I wish I had paid closer attention to the time on my app though because I definitely could have came in under 30 minutes if I had, but now I have a goal for next weekend!

When we had all finished, we headed over to the food tables for some bananas and water and decided to head home to shower. We went back out to walk around West Chester in the afternoon and it just so happened that there was a running store next to the froyo place! ;) I found the perfect race fuel there...

Overall, I had a great weekend and would definitely love to run this race again! I can't believe that I ran almost an entire minute faster than my training paces. I'm so excited to run again this coming weekend and I've already decided to add in some consistent PulseTread training (great app!) with my regular runs during the week.