The Governor's Cup 5K

There have been four races in my life that I can honestly say that I loved:

 

- 2014 Governor's Cup 8K

- 2014 Kiawah Half Marathon

- 2015 ACC Championship 5K

- 2016 Bunny Hop 5K

 

But of all of those, the Governor's Cup 8K was the very first one that I loved and I was so upset this past fall when I found out they had cancelled it. Except they didn't cancel it. They just wanted to revamp the courses and move it out of November because they didn't like competing with football season. Fair. I wouldn't want to compete with football season, either!
 

 

There isn't actually an 8K anymore which is fairly disappointing, because I loved that distance and you don't find too many 8K races around here. They instead changed it to a 5K and added a Friday night Main Street Mile in addition to the half marathon that's been a staple of the Governor's Cup since it began 40+ years ago. I signed up to run the 5K because y'all, I certainly wasn't doing the half marathon!
 

Mile 1

The race started out on the best street in all of Columbia {Main Street} and headed towards the State House before taking a left on Gervais. We wound through some historical areas around Bull Street where there was a grand total of one {yes, just one} spirit group. The race was already hotter than I had anticipated it being and the lack of fun people cheering on the runners was a little disappointing. But I hit mile one right around 9:00 which was awesome!

 

Mile 2

I think that I spent most of the first part of this mile hating life. And running. But then we got to the Governor's Mansion {which is entirely appropriate since this is the Governor's Cup, after all} and headed downhill behind Finley Park. I'd been waiting for this downhill section all race and it was as great as I thought it would be.

 

Mile 3

It stayed great into the third mile... until we started going back up hill. It never occurred to me that we're going to have to run back up a hill to get to the finish line. Not just any hill, either. A nice, slow, gradual hill that passed by all of my favorite restaurants in the Vista which just reminded me of how hungry I was.

 

Finish

No hill is worse than the Blossom Street hill that used to be on the old Governor's Cup course, but seriously, that slow gradual hill up Gadsden Street and continuing up Gervais to the finish line was all kinds of brutal. I crossed the finish line in 29:19 and was handed a medal by a race volunteer. I had no idea they were doing medals for every runner for this race so hey, fun surprise! Any race with a medal for every finisher is a good race in my book.

After I finished, I walked over to where the half marathon course finish line was. I knew that the leader of the half had to be close to finishing since it had been about an hour since they had taken off from the start line. Sure enough, the winner came barreling through a couple minutes later.



This guy runs TWICE as fast as I do! My best half marathon time {2:14:53} is one second shy of being exactly twice as long as his time of 1:07:27. That's insane. It blows my mind that people can run that fast for that long!

 

Final 5K Results

Watch Time - 29:19

Chip Time - 29:18

Pace - 9:31/min

Age Group - 10/30

Gender - 63/295

Overall - 170/495

 

There was no PR this weekend, but after the Great Toe Injury and not running for a few weeks and the heat/humidity... totally content with this race! It was better than I had anticipated and I'm glad that I was able to run it.

However.

It is Columbia and summer is basically here. The races {for me} are officially over until the fall. There will probably be an early morning beach run or two or a post work run if it's unusually cool out one day. But for now? Adios, running. See ya in the fall!