St. Andrew's Dash into the 80's 5k

So, this past weekend I ran the St. Andrew's Dash into the 80's 5k with a friend. I found it on the Potomoc River Running website since they were timing the event. It seemed like a good choice because we were looking for a low key 5k the last weekend of September. Plus, the 80's theme was a nice extra benefit.

It was a really small race.  There were only 205 finishers according to the results. The race was a benefit for a school in Clifton, Virginia and it was definitely a community event.  It seemed like most people knew each other and I assume we're involved with the school in some way. This felt weird to us at first since we were random outsiders, but everyone was really nice and we soon felt comfortable.

There was packet pick up at a PRR store the day before the race but they also had packet pick up the morning of the race, which is what we chose. The race started at the high school and there was plenty of parking when we arrived 30 minutes before the 8am race start.  Packet pick up was super easy and there were only 2 people in front of me. The packet included a tech shirt (not bad for the low registration fee) and several coupons.  We had plenty of time to put the stuff back in the car and use the bathrooms (real bathrooms in the high school!) before everyone headed to the start line.

There was a DJ playing 80's music, there was the school mascot, a prayer, and then we were off. The morning started out cool but it warmed up quickly. Thankfully there was shade on most of the course.  And there were gently rolling hills but nothing too bad. There were 2 water stops and a truck blasting more 89's music around mile 1 (and 2 since it was an out and back course).  

I had a great time running with my friend and catching up.  It didn't feel tough at all.  So I was surprised to see our finish time.  My official chip time was 39:04 or an average of 12:44 per mile. This placed me at 77 out of 102 women. My PR from the Semper Fi 5k was 38:54 so only a 10 second difference! I definitely could have beaten it if I had pushed a bit more even though this was a hillier course.  Oh well, good to know for next time :)

After the race, there was more music in front of the school along with water, bagels, bananas, oranges, and clif bars. We stayed for the award ceremonies and the head back to DC.  overall, this was a great, low key race.  It was very family friendly.  There were kids races and a fun run in addition to the 5k.  There were a lot of strollers and kids in the 5k as well. It wasn't necessarily worth traveling for but it's a good option if you're looking for something easy, charming, and relatively cheap at the end of September.