Race Recaps: Run@Work 5K (PR!) & Summit Brewery Beer Run

On Friday, Sept. 13 I ran the 5th Annual State Capitol Run@Work 5K. It was a 5K just for state employees. Up until about a week before, I had fully intended to just leisurely run this race. Then I found out it was being chip timed and that mindset went right out the window. I hadn’t actually run a 5K race in a while and started to get hungry for a 5K PR. I knew I had one in me, I just needed the race to give it a shot.

The day of the race was gorgeous! It was sunny and cool – perfect weather for running.

Perfect day for a 5K!

I was super excited for this run, and I kind of went balls to the wall. My adrenaline was already pumping when we lined up at the start after a busy and semi-stressful morning in the office. A couple of my coworkers and I lined up near the front so we’d have less weaving to do. (There were almost 450 people in this race!) The horn sounded and we were off. You immediately go around a corner and then we were met by a lovely hill.

Going up?

The good news is the course was pretty much an out and back, so while we had to run up the hill to start we got to run down the hill to end the race. I knew the hill was at the beginning, and between my adrenaline and trying to weave around people to get out of the herd, I think I took the hill a bit faster than I needed to. I felt fine the whole way up, but definitely noticed that I was running faster than usual.

The course overall was a bit hilly – I wasn’t expecting that. After going through part of the neighborhood, the course actually took us through a cemetery. Yes, we ran through a cemetery on Friday the 13th (whose idea was this?). I was more focused on keeping up a steady pace than worry about the gravestones that surrounded me. Some of the road in the cemetery was gravel, which if you remember from my Ragnar recap is not my favorite, but luckily the gravel was more packed down, so not as bad to run on.

After making our way out of the cemetery it was back into the neighborhood and before I knew it I was running down the big hill towards the Capitol. I could already taste the PR. The downhill probably helped, but I still had a good amount of energy left to have a strong finish. The finish line lead you right up to the steps of the Capitol.

Finish line!

Like I said, I wanted a PR and I got one! My official time was 26:33.10! I crushed my old 5K PR of 28:54. I finished 100th out of 447, placed 27th out of 288 among females, and placed 13th out of 108 in the 35 and Under (F) age group. One of my coworkers actually finished 3rd among females in our age group! Super impressive!

The Run@Work 5K was a lot of fun, and I would definitely sign up for it again next year.

The next day (Saturday morning) I did the Summit Brewery Co. Beer Run. This 5K is part of the MN Brewery Running Series. All of the runs in this series start and end at a local brewery and are very low key. It’s not timed, they don’t close off streets, and they cap registration at 100 people. This was the perfect follow-up to my Friday 5K. I did the run with my sister and three friends. We did a nice and easy run/walk combo along the course. The route even took us through some really nice neighborhoods that I didn’t know about in St. Paul.  It was another gorgeous morning for a run!

Summit Brewery and the Start/Finish line

The race ended at the Summit Brewery and we grabbed our beer and a bagel! Who needs a medal when you get a beer at the finish line? (And you get to keep the glass! Well, a clean one.)

Beer and bagels – breakfast of champions 😉

After we finished our beer, we got to take a tour of the brewery. Really to cool to hear about how the beer is made and learn a little more about Summit Brewery Co. The run was super fun, and I would totally do another one and check out another local brewery.

Did you run any races this week? Were they for fun or were you going for a PR?