Celebration Rotary Club 19th Annual Pancake Run Recap

Occasionally, I do things without reading the fine print. Like signing up for the 2018 Princess Half without realizing that my good proof of time won't work this time around. Cue the panic of being in the last corral when I realized this around June. (Yay for not taking races seriously since I moved!) I quickly checked all the local races for a 10k, 15k, or half that would help me get a new proof of time and discovered the Celebration Rotary Club's Pancake Run. It looked like a nice, easy course, and it was cheap. So I signed up and started to train!

The race took place in Celebration with the start and finish line by the Fire Station. I was worried about parking so I arrived at Celebration at 6:00 and was pleased to see parking at a church next to the fire station. From there I went to get my packet, which was easy to find but a bit strange. Usually I have to show ID to receive my packet but this time I just needed to give them my first and last name. Once I had my packet I went back to my car to nap for a bit until 7:15 when I planned on warming up.

When 7:15 rolled around I headed to the start and stretched. The race organizers did have a woman leading Zumba as a warm up but I didn't like the idea of changing my usual warm up.

There wasn't much warning before the starting gun went off but when it did my phone decided to stop speaking with my wireless headphones. I updated my phone during the last Apple update and it's given me issues with connecting to FitBit and my wireless headphones. Thankfully the interval timer I use vibrates strong enough so I can feel it through my arm band.

The first mile of the race is pretty unremarkable, honestly for someone who runs through Celebration weekly the whole race is pretty unremarkable. I was able to settle into a nice comfortable pace and pulled off a 9'07", well below my target pace of 9'40" for the first mile.

The second mile I pulled off a 9'52" as I settled into my intervals. This was below where I planned on being but I felt comfortable so I worked on maintaining it.

Miles 3-6 evened out into 10'11", 10'17", 10'14", and 10'16" respectfully. For the final 0.2 miles I could see the finish line and decided to give it everything I had left. There was a girl who I had been trading places with for the majority of the race and I had it in my head that I couldn't let her finish in front of me. Honestly, I feel like she felt the same way because once I passed her I felt like I could see her try to match my pace.

I finished in 1:05:06 which was slower than my goal of 1:00:00 but faster than my PR of 1:14:46. I'm pleased with my time and how I did, but it's been irritating me how close I was to getting that 1:00 10k. At the minimum I fully plan on going at or under 1:00 for the Pancake Run next year.

Overall, I enjoyed the race. It was a basic, cheap, local race that was fairly organized and on a flat course. The biggest issues I had were that there were no parking instructions given prior to the race, you couldn't hear the announcer/DJ if you were close to the starting line, and traffic wasn't completely blocked from entering the course.