Today is the Race!

The CIGNA 5K Road Race starts in a few hours. I got my race number and my chip earlier this afternoon and the roads have started to be closed off to traffic.

I'm a little nervous, but prepared. My mom (a CIGNA employee) will be directing traffic at one of the side streets, so I'll be looking for her to wave to. My sister and my nephews will also be along the race course to provide encouragement (and make it more fun for me), so that will be great.

The temperature now is 89 degrees, but around 6 pm it should be around 87, with a dew point of 61. This means the race will be hot but not with stifling humidity.

I've run the race course twice, and it's a nice, mostly flat course (or at least no very steep hills). What will feel strange is that I have always run on the sidewalk, and now I will be in the road! I think that will make it easier.

It's estimated to be approximately 6,000 race participants this year. I will be ahead of many but behind a lot, too! I don't have a time goal set, I'm using this as my 5K benchmark time to beat. Different factors affect race times (running a coordinated race may result in a different time than running the same distance alone), so my plan is to run this normally and see what happens.

To give y'all an idea, the slowest finisher usually has a 1 hour 15 min time. The winner completes it in about 14 minutes. I expect my time to be about 40-45 minutes, running non-stop.

It's a big event, so there will probably be news coverage on WMUR tonight at 11! Among the 6,000 participants, look for the blond ponytail in a hot pink Adidas shirt!