Gasparilla 15K race report

Well better late than never!

Had a great time at the Gasparilla event in Tampa on the weekend of Feb. 28th- March 1st. I am thankful I ran the 15K (9.3 miles) instead of the half as the weather on Sunday was quite cold and blustery! Our weather on Sat. was in the nice upper 60's and pure sun. Beautiful.

The expo was fantastic and provided a lot of entertainment for our family. Even my little ones had a blast trying out free samples of food and smoothie drinks. There was shopping galore but I was good!

It was up early for the 7:30 am start. I traveled by myself as my dh and mil didn't have to be there until 8:30. I was a bit worried about parking but I had plenty of time to get a great spot.

The race started on time and we were all off. I kept a good pace for most of the race but on mile 7 I started lagging. I had Hammer Gels that I took on mile 4 and 7 so I was thankful that I had them. The one negative of this race was that there was no sports drinks on the course, just water. I think I really needed it since I was sweating a lot.

Funny thing is that I had to go walk the 5K at 9:30 so I knew I had to book it before I missed the start! I was meeting my MIL and I had to be on time! So I kept on running and had a PR of 1:41:23 which was 20 minutes off of my last years 15K time. I was pleased as my goal was to be under 1:45.

I was especially proud of my dh who ran his first 5K! He ran the whole time and was laughing as he tried to plow through a water stop running but it didn't work so well. Gotta love him!

Here we all are!