Race Report- East Ave Grocery Run

Have I mentioned how much I love fall/winter 5k season?! It started with the Iron Angel 5k and continued last week with Pumpkins in the Park, another race I was able to 3-peat, this time along side my Dad. This week I did a new race, well new for me, the East Ave Grocery Run 5k!!

I got a text on Thursday from Molly asking if I wanted to join her for her run-iversary race. Molly started her running journey two years ago when she trained for a 5k through Medved. Her graduation race was The Grocery Run. I have heard of the race but never had the ambition to run it myself. So when she asked if I wanted to join in I looked up the race info, printed an application and set the alarm. Even though it sounds like I am just being a great running friend there was one tiny selfish reason I obliged so easily. You see, I added up my potential race mileage for 2013 and I would be about 3 miles under my number for 2012. So one more 5k would give me the little nudge that I needed.

It kind of felt good to know absolutely nothing about this race and to just jump in blindly. I joked on my FB page that I got suckered into paying to run on streets I could run on for free, but the entire race fee goes to the Third Presbyterian Church and Foodlink which work together to feed the hungry of Rochester. Plus the course was dubbed as flat and fast. They forget to tell you that you have to have fast legs to run fast, but it still sounds good. So far everything about this race sounded fantastic, until I walked out to meet Molly and discovered it was raining! By the time we got downtown it had cleared up though. The first thing I noticed was lots of colorful signs  indicating all of the lots for parking. This was very helpful. We found a spot quickly and headed towards to church the register. Instantly we were greeted by tons of smiling and welcoming volunteers who pointed us in the right direction. In addition to the friendly people guiding you, they had bright signage everywhere!

Couldn't get lost if you tried.

Registration was super easy, there wasn't even a line. The shirts were pretty cool and I was wishing I had signed up ahead of time to get one.

In addition to having tons of bathrooms they even offered coffee and hot chocolate.

After getting our bibs and saying hi to some friendly running peeps, we headed outside to check things out. Molly told me that if we had brought canned goods we would have gotten a free Nalgene bottle. Again, another disadvantage to jumping into a race blindly, oh well.

We saw lots of people in food related clothing, I guess there was a contest if you came dressed up and even some race mascots.

Taken from the Grocery Run FB page. 

We then headed to the start and I ran into one of my students. I wished her good luck and then we were off! There were tons of spectators and the weather had cleared up nicely. I briefly thought that I had maybe dressed too warmly, but there was nothing to do about it now.

Lots of Wegmans Peeps racing!

Here we go...

We started our pretty speedy, well speedy for us, but I felt good so I just kept pushing on. About 5 minutes in we started seeing the leaders near the one mile mark. Seriously?! On our way to the one mile mark we passed two areas where the House of Guitars had sponsored music, how cool to have blasting music during a 5k. Great race amenity! 

Race photo from the Grocery Run's FB page!
Molly's on the right and I am next to her.

I hit the one mile mark at 11:32, again pretty quick for my typical run lately. I still felt okay so I kept on pushing. I walked through the water station and thanked the volunteers as I went. I did the second mile in 11:41 and was feeling my calves begin to tighten up. I thought my third mile was my slowest, since I took a couple very short walk breaks but it came up at 11:35. It was also during this mile that I really started over heating and having my glasses fog up. I could have done without my jacket for sure. I saw the finish banner on the horizon and I tried to push it to come in under 36 minutes but I wound up coming in at 36:01. If only I had gone quicker through the water station, oh well, still my best time since February!!!!!! I congratulated my student, who had finished right in front of me and waited & cheered Molly in, a little over a minute after I finished. We headed over to the refreshment tent, where they had a HUGE spread to enjoy. Even though we didn't eat anything I did take a chocolate milk for the road.

Emily and Molly.

Done!

I loved this race and am so glad Molly asked me to join her. I would do it again for sure! It was so well organized, the course was great, there were even a lot of spectators out and about. I also enjoyed that this race had people of all sorts of abilities participating. I was surprised to see so many kids, families and walkers out to support the cause. This was my 46th race and it put me at 103 race miles for 2013 and I still have 3-4 more 5k's to run. I also spent some time this week preparing my half marathon training program for the Lake Effect Half in February 2014. I'll post on my plan later in the month. I'll officially start training at the beginning of December. More running stuff for me to blab about, aren't you lucky. 

  When was the last time you tried a new race?