Orange Village Aloha Run

This was a charming inaugural race. About a 20 minute drive from where I live, I got there just after registration opened. They had a nice little start line party with fire trucks, a donut truck, an espresso truck, and a great DJ! Between 5K runners and 1-milers, there was a small crowd getting ready to start.

I jogged in place at the start line to get my heart rate up a bit so that I wouldn’t have such an extreme spike out of the gate. The start signal was just a few minutes after 9am and I pushed hard to start. One young speedy guy was way out ahead of me, but I didn’t sense anyone behind me after about a quarter mile. I hit the first mile marker at 5:55 and knew that I needed to ease up on the gas a little if I didn’t want to totally blow this thing up.

But it’s not like I had much of a choice. From 1.5 miles to 2 miles, I had a pretty consistent elevation gain to tackle and my watch was telling me I was slowing. I knew I needed to ease up, but it was also alarming to see the slowdown reflected in my rolling 1 mile pace. I didn’t want to ease up too much.

Up until now, it’s been a two lane road, only partially closed to traffic. Luckily none of the cars was an issue to contend with.

After mile 2, the course turns left into Orange Village Park. On the turn, I took the opportunity to glance back and could not see any competition behind me. I head into the park, running on some gorgeous paved pathways through the trees. The course eventually merges with the 1-mile course and the 1-milers were all very courteous to give us runners some space.

I turn right on Lander Road at around 18 minutes, with a good sense that there’s really not much distance left until the finish. With 2 minutes of buffer until 20 minutes, I have a feeling I’m about to hit my goal. I don’t let up and cross the finish line at 19:05, feeling like I gave 100% the whole way.

I’m feeling accomplished for not only nabbing a new PR, my first sub-20 5K, and my first top ranking in my age group, but also beating my goal time by 55 seconds.