To kick off race weekend I signed up for the Hyland 5k to run a little shake out before the Cleveland Experience. I had this race in mind for a while, but as the weekend got closer, I started to second guess running in the heat two days in a row. I told myself I wouldn’t “race” this one, just take it easy and get ready for the half.

It was already pretty humid by the time I got there, so I did a short warm up and then tried to hide inside until the start. There were tons of people there, a lot more than I expected with the 5k downtown at the same time. Right before the start, I headed outside and stood in the shade, avoiding the sun as much as I possibly could. About a minute before we started, I saw Heather and Jay. We were off, and the heat quickly set in, this would be tough. The first mile was around 9:00 and I knew I couldn’t keep this pace up with the heat. I started to slow, but kept a pretty good pace. Most of the course was in the sun, so finding shade was pretty hard.

At mile two I saw Kimi and Stef, it was a nice bit of motivation to finish the final mile. All I could think of though was how would I run 10 more miles in this heat the following day. Luckily right at the three mile marker Heather and Jay came up and helped me to the finish. We came in one after another. I was so glad to see them, and so glad to be done. That heat was rough.

We loaded up on water and fruit and went our separate ways. At this point, I was pretty concerned on how the half was going to go. I am not a warm weather runner, so I knew Sunday would be an interesting race….

Hy-5k Results:

Official time: 27:22

AG: 10/29

Overall: 243/650