Rock N' Roll St. Petersburg Mini Marathon review 2-10-2013

After running the Best Damn Race the weekend before the RnR St. Pete races I took most of the week off from running and only went out once.  I was not sure how my body would handle running half marathons on consecutive weeks so we opted to run the 5k "Mini Marathon".  On Saturday we went to the race expo at Tropicana Field and picked up our bib, shirt and goodie bag.  I was impressed that we still got a nice shirt for the Mini marathon, but it didn't indicate it was for the St. Pete race.  Oh well.  We browsed the expo for a bit and got a discount coupon for food at Fergs, so after the expo we went over to Fergs for lunch.

We got up nice and early on Sunday and drove down to St. Pete.  We didn't want to pay the crazy parking price for the Trop so we parked in the South Core garage for $3 and walked over to the Trop for the start of the Mini Marathon, which started a half hour before the Half Marathon.  I was going to push for a new 5k PR so we positioned ourselves toward the front of the corral.  After the anthem the horn went off and I took off.  Since I have been running half marathons lately I felt like I could push as hard as possible for a 5k race. I had to bob and weave a little at the start but I soon had plenty of space to run.  The course was mostly flat and slightly downhill which was nice.

The first mile went by and I definitely felt my pace was faster than usual, but I wanted to push it out.  At about a mile and a half there was a water stop so I grabbed a water and kept going.  About mile two I really started to doubt if I would be able to PR.  My pace slipped a little, but I just told myself that it was only a mile more so I picked it up a little more and kept going.  There was a slight hill during this mile, but I went through it and pushed on.

We came around the final corner and could see the finish line in the distance, but it felt like we weren't getting any closer to it.  Finally I saw the mile 3 marker and gave everything I had for the last stretch.  I finished in 28:05, which was more than 40 seconds faster than my previous 5k PR!

After the race I got my medal and then was handed Water, Gatorade, chocolate milk, strawberries, granola bars and bananas.  I met  up with Jenty when she finished and we sat and ate and drink for a few minutes.  We then went to the beer tent and I got my free "beer" which was Michelob Ultra.  Neither of us felt like waiting for the rap concert so we walked back towards the car and watched the fast half marathon runners for a bit then we went home to enjoy the day.