psychic prediction & irish road rover

despite my deep hatred for 5k races, i managed to somehow sign myself up for two of them in the same weekend. smart. lucky for me it was one of the warmest weekends we've had so far, and i didnt really have to go all out in either of the races, both of which are positives in my eyes.

sometime last year my friend sarah told me about a "prediction race" she heard of where there are no time clocks, no mile markers, and you predict what your time is and whoever comes closest wins. we both thought that seemed like a pretty sweet race, but had never seen one around here. well, thursday morning i got an email from Maine Track Club (which i joined back in december) announcing their 6th annual psychic prediction 5k run. at first i wasnt going to do it but on friday i figured why the heck not, and signed myself up (and there was no race fee, woo hoo! so broke right now). i couldnt really decide what i wanted to do for my time, so i just went with tylers age and my age (clearly not my fastest 5k, but not my slowest either).

a guy that takes pics at all the races around the area was there and took this lovely one of me before the start of the race...
despite the prediction of 50 degree weather later on that afternoon, the start of this race (7am) was still a bit chilly. and when i found out how the race started, i went back and sat in my car with the heat on.... (whoever picks the slowest time they start the race clock at their time, then as the clock ticks down you leave the start at the time you picked for your prediction. then the person to cross the finish line closest to when the clock reads 00:00 wins). the slowest predicted time was 43 minutes i think, and i predicted 26:29. had quite a bit of time to warm up in my car (and call sarah of course).

here i go!

i found this on the guys website... was he being artistic? or did he like my tattoo? :)

aaaaand here i come, turning my head as i pass the "finish line" (cone) to see what the clock read.

so how did i do? i was 9 seconds off! and that won me 3rd place :) 1st place went to a woman who was off by 3 seconds, and 2nd place went to a guy who was 6 seconds off. this race was really interesting because you truly were running your own race. you didnt have to worry who was coming up behind you or passing the people in front of you. for those of you that run a lot you know when your body is working too hard or not enough which is key in a race like this. i look forward to doing this race (and/or another one like it) again!

then on sunday was the irish road rover 5k, the 3rd race in my 12 in 2010 series. an absolutely beautiful day for running, and it was a race i had never run before so i was excited. i also somehow convinced the boy to run it with me (he was not so excited as you will see below). i decided before even leaving the house that i was going to run with tyler the entire way... i felt if he was caring enough to come out and run it with me, i wouldnt leave him in the dust (haha... plus he was running as a bandit and was a bit nervous about it).

melissa and me in our signature pre race pose outside the bar that put this race on, brian boru.

dont let his semi smile fool you....

...he clearly wasnt as excited to be there as the girls were. and although im no where near irish, i figured i would rock the shamrock socks :)

nothing all too special to report on this race except a HUGE CONGRATS to melissa on her PR, 22:38 i think it was. you rock!! tyler and i ran/jogged/walked it in 30:38 (cut the kid some slack, he's missing 1/5th of his lung!) but we had a great time. after the race we all headed to bull feeney's pub for a guinness or two.

another race down. cant believe its march already... ten weeks til sugarloaf!!