This weekend I ran a total spur of the moment 5K.

After my super speedy run last week, I wanted to make my new 5K PR official in an actual race.

Picking out which 5K to do was easy.  A whole bunch of my family was already registered for the Kentlands 5K and I made a last minute decision to join the party.


Aunt Marybeth, my cousin Kenny, his fiance Nikki, my cousin Laura, me

I don't think I've ever been so nervous before a 5K in my life. I hit the porta-potties three times before the race started. I normally only pee that much before long races because those actually still scare me a little.

But I wanted a new PR and I wanted it bad. I guess the pressure was on.

About 10 minutes before the start of the race, my aunt, cousins and I all split up and headed to our individual corrals. Yep, this was a 5K with a wave start, something I've never experienced before, but it definitely helped with the crowds on the course.

I was nervous heading into the corral for 8-9 minute miles. I never start in a group that runs that fast and I really didn't feel like I belonged there among the "fast people."

I stretched a little bit, hopped up and down to get the blood flowing and fired off a quick "Please let me set a new PR" prayer.

The race started on a downhill and I did my best to keep my speed in check during the first mile. I was trying to find that happy pace where I was pushing hard, but not going out too fast and burning out at mile 2.5.


Laura and Kenny near mile one (source)

The course climbed from mile 1.5 to 2.5. I kept looking at Garmin to see where my pace was and it was definitely falling off a little bit. I latched on to a guy who was running near my speed and decided to stick with him the rest of the course.

He'd cruise past me on uphills, running them much more efficiently than I did, but I'd fly by him on the downhills.

As we hit the last downhill into the finish, he took off.

I didn't have much more gas left in the tank at that point, but I pushed as hard as I could and crossed the finish line in 26:21, an average pace of 8:29.


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My previous PR was 27:36, so I shaved more than a minute off that time.

I hustled back to the finish line so I could watch everyone else finish and of course I missed every single person. Good thing the race people took lots of finish line pictures!

Laura had the most intense sprint to the finish ever and she finished only a few seconds off her time from our race earlier this summer!


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Nikki and Kenny finished about a minute apart, and Kenny ran the whole thing in his Vibrams.

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And my Aunt Marybeth finished her first ever race in just about 40 minutes!


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All around it was a solid day of racing for the Milcetich family.

I'm so, so excited that my family had fun racing. I'm hoping this means I'll be able to get them to run lots of other races with me!