Rock the Crossroads 5K (My Triathlon Cool Down?)

I'm sure you've all seen the bumper stickers or t-shirts that say "26.2 is my cool down" (referring to the marathon at the end of the Ironman race of course).

Well on Saturday, 26.2 miles certainly wasn't my cool down, but I guess maybe I could say 3.1 was.

Saturday, I not only did my first triathlon of the season, setting a new overall PR, bike PR, and run PR (if you missed that report click here), but, I thought I'd add an evening 5K to my day too.  I woke up at 3 am, raced my triathlon, and then headed home.  I got home just in time for a shower and lunch.  Afterwards I took a quick nap, and before I knew it, it was time to get up and around for the 5K.  I was exhausted.  I wouldn't end up getting home til about 11pm.  It was a really long day.

The Rock the Crossroads 5K is held in the Crossroads Arts District in Kansas City.  It's an eclectic part of town full of graffiti, odd pieces of art, art galleries and restaurants.  It's a pretty hilly course for a 5K, but the swag was great.  You got an awesome t-shirt, huge medal (bigger than many of my half marathon medals), and a post race concert from the local KC band Switch.  You also got free race photos - bonus!

Cool graffiti in the background.  That's my friend Cindy in black and white too

I knew going into the race I shouldn't run it fast (and probably wouldn't be able to if I wanted).  So I decided up front, I would take it slow, because I still had a long marathon training run the next morning.  Luckily this was a recovery week for me, so my long run was only 8 miles.  Although a triathlon and a 5K in the same day is probably not the most ideal situation for a recovery week.  I managed my 8 miles ok the next morning, but it was hard.  My legs were dead those first 4 miles, but I was actually faster the last 4.

Shirt & Medal

Anyway, we were meeting friends for this race, so I decided to run with my friend Cindy who I knew would be taking it slower.  I knew if I ran by myself I'd push too hard.  So really there's not much to report.  I ran a 5K at a pretty slow pace.  We finished with an 11:54 pace (Garmin), but an official pace of 12:18 because the course was pretty long - 3.23.  My legs felt pretty good though, and I felt like I could have gone much faster - which felt great, it made me feel strong.  But I'm glad I took it slow and didn't kill myself.  I knew better.

After I got done I found out Jim had WON the Masters Division!  It was his first Masters win and he was really excited.  He's an amazing runner!  I was so proud of him!

Lastly, I'll leave you with this nugget stolen from my husband's blog.  I thought it was pretty funny.  You know Jim and I love to take funny pictures, and this seemed like it could have been a real story....LOL......

From Jim's Blog:

After we parked and chatted with our friends for a bit, Michael and I stopped to ask this friendly Robot where the starting line was.  He must not have heard me or didn't understand, because he didn't respond and actually had kind of a confused look on his face.  To which Michael immediately started making fun of the guy and was like, "Duh geeee ... duh I dunnno ... I'm just a stupid piece of metal ... beep-boop-beep ... I don't compute human talking ... duhhhhheee!!!"  I felt like she was a little over the top and I actually felt bad for the poor guy.  He seemed like a nice Robot that didn't deserve that.  But if he'd been a Zombie I would've probably done exactly the same thing.  Michael really hates Robots.