Carlsbad 5000 Race Recap

I normally do NOT like posting my race recaps out of order (actually, I don't even like the idea of running another race before my last recap has been done and shared), but I know I will have multiple posts for Ragnar so I figured I'd start with the shorter race first.

Last year I ran the Carlsbad 5000. While at the race I saw that they had opened registration for the following year for $20! I mean, a SoCal 5K for $20... Let's be real, they are sort of unheard of (not to mention it is a Rock 'N' Roll signature race, has AMAZING scenery and is an AWESOME race in and of itself) so both Ryan and I registered!

Bib pick-up from last year. This year we had to do it the morning
of since I wasn't home from Ragnar before the "expo" closed.

Well, I guess I didn't notice it, but when I agreed to run #Ragnar4Rett with #TeamSparkle I already had the Carlsbad 5000 on the books! Thankfully Ragnar is a Friday and Saturday adventure and the Carlsbad 5000 is a Sunday race... So, I guess you can consider the Carlsbad 5000 as my SEVENTH leg of #RagnarSoCal (yup, we ran Ragnar as an Ultra team, so we all ran 6 times...) or possibly a shake-out run from the race the days before.

Flat Carlee - A Sparkle Athletic skirt, PRO Compression socks, KT Tape,
#TeamSparkle trucker hat, Handful bra, QALO wedding bands, Road ID 
bracelet, Garmin Forerunner 220, Brooks Ghost 8 (complete with Shwings),
Momentum Jewelry wrap, Pyrika bracelet, and a #Ragnar4Rett bracelet. 

Since Ryan was registered for the race as well, I knew I would be taking it "easy" {his pace is a bit slower than mine, and if he is willing to run a race then I am willing to stick with him, so I didn't have to worry about stressing out about trying to run a PR or anything cray-cray like that}. I figured the hardest part would be the WAKING UP part...  I had ZERO winks of sleep between waking up at 5:30am on Friday morning and when I laid down in my bed around 9pm Saturday evening.

Thankfully I only needed the first alarm!

Thankfully, when I woke up, my body felt MUCH BETTER than I was expecting. I did a little foam rolling before waking up the hubby, but for the most part it was a quick morning because I wanted as much shut eye as possible.

We live a hop, skip and a jump away from the race so we decided we would shoot to leave the house by 7:30am. Our wave started at 8:43am and we needed to grab our bibs first. Bib pick-up was super easy, but I am a little disappointed they didn't even look at the confirmation sheets (they make a big hub-bub about printing and bringing them, so much so that Ryan had to go to Kinko's the night before to print them out, and they just told us to throw them right into the trash).

After we acquired our billboards, I mean bibs (but, legit, the Rock 'N' Roll bibs are the size of my torso... THEY ARE HUGE!), we met up with some friends. Hugs, pictures and laughs were had by all!

You know we love to #KeepItTight together! 

Ryan and I were even able to get a picture with the creepy gnome before the start of the race... Because, even if it isn't a runDisney race, when you see character stops YOU STOP!

Your thoughts? Is he creepy or no?

Before we knew it, it was time to head to the "corral". I honestly don't even remember there being signs for any type of pacing, so all the 30 somethings just filled the area (our wave was the 30-39 men and women) and got ready to go. The National Anthem was sung (I appreciate that they did it for each of the four waves, even if the folks running the All Day 20K had to hear it multiple times) and we were off!

I'm AWAKE! It's a MIRACLE! So LET'S DO THIS THANG!

Starting line shenanigans!
Photo credit: @SharpEndurance's Instagram Feed

Ryan had tweaked his back the week before (stretching for our 5-miler on Sunday and then he proceeded to run it anyway) so hadn't run in a couple days and I was on dead legs and limited sleep so I knew our time wouldn't be amazing, but we decided we were just out for a little #SundayRunday with 2,000ish friends!

Smitha grabbed this shot of Ry and I running together.
Aren't we the cutest?! Hehe.

I am pretty proud of the time we were able to ROCK the race in. We kept negative splits and chugged along with smiles on our faces the whole time! I love that the course has a couple of out and back sections (even though I know out-and-backs aren't everyone's jam) because then I get to cheer on all of my friends.

So, I had remembered that Rock 'N' Roll had announced that there would be special medals for the first 250 finishers per wave and I was STOKED! That was, until I remembered that I was going to be running Ragnar the day before and the hope of running 'fast' was out of the question. Come to find out, the medals were given to the first 250 men AND first 250 women that finished each wave... And I was the 217th women in the 30 something wave! HECK TO THE YES!

One can never have too much arm candy, right?!

Smitha has the 'standard' medal on the left and I have the
'first 250 finisher' medal on the right

After grabbing all of our goodies (okay, gotta get up on my soap box really quick... I know that giving runners bags to put all their goodies in sometimes causes them to get greedy and take tons of the treats, leaving none for the back-of-the-packers, but man is it tough trying to carry everything. I would much rather a race pre-stuff bags with the goodies and hand us ONE thing, rather than runners half out of breath trying to drink water and carry their medal, a banana, their phone, crackers and a KIND bar without having it all slide out of their sweaty grips... But, hey, that's just me...), we made our way over to grab out race shirts.

#RealTalk: Who wears brown shirts?! Don't get me wrong, I love the retro look,
but the color could be A LOT better!

I appreciate that we weren't forced to get our shirts with our bibs, that way we didn't have to run with them. I also love that I could throw all of my goodies in the bag that the shirt was in, that way I didn't lose my precious mandarin oranges! We hit up the vendors on our way to the beer garden. It was AWESOME getting to meet Keri from PRO Compression, as well as make another CHARACTER STOP with the Vista Strawberry Festival Run berry-man (they actually shared one of my #Ragnar4Rett pictures on Instagram to spread the word about our efforts - how awesome is that?!).

PRO Compression ambassadors at the Booth!

If you have ever had to deal with Customer Service at PRO, you've
probably been contacted by this sweet lady, KERI!

Who doesn't love a giant berry?! 

Then, it was time for Ryan's favorite part... BEER! And... it was GOOD BEER! Pizza Port Brewing actually brewed two custom beers just for the race - Full Sprint IPA and Cool Down Lager. Ryan was in heaven (especially since I don't drink beer so he got my tickets too!). Now that I think of it, maybe I should get him a 'Will Run For Beer' shirt ;) We hung out in the beer garden, chatting it up with friends for a good while.

Since I was the non-beer drinker, I was also the photographer

Um, did I catch that drip PERFECTLY or what?! 

Eventually we realized that we should probably pack it up and head back home. All good things must come to an end... So we hugged our friends and made our way back to the car.

Carlsbad... More like CarlsGOOD! Beyond blessed to live here!

The views on this course are amazing, but the bling, blends {blogger + friends} and beer make this race one that we will be coming back to for years to come! And right now you can even register for next year's race for a measly $25 (or the All Day 20K for $75). Head over to Rock 'N' Roll's site NOW before that early bird pricing disappears!

Have you ever registered for a race a year in advance?