Why is this place so damn hilly?

Today I ran my first race since the half at Grandma's in June.  I did do a fun run in August - and it was fun - but I wasn't try to place or PR or anything like that.  So how did I do?

Silver is my favorite metal - besides platinum, of course

Yes, I got second place in my division.  Pretty darn respectable I think, especially since I have never been very good at 5k's.   My observations for this race (I'm a sucker for a list):

• The website stated all registrants would get a long-sleeved tech shirt.  What they provided was long-sleeved, but it was definitely not a tech shirt.  It was a pretty cheap, thin cotton shirt.  AND they ran out of women's shirts.  AND they were safety yellow (yuck). So I just got a shirt for The Boy and called it good.  At least they were good about letting me get a size that I didn't register for.
• The route was nice in that it went for a good part by the St. Louis River (hence River Run).  But there were a lot of loops and, man, was it hilly.  The hills there's nothing you can do about.  I would think they would try to make a course that didn't go in circles quite so much.
• The post-race food was damn nice - water, gatorade, fruit, yogurt, bagels, granola bars, and I don't know what else.  Way more than you'd expect for a local 5k.
• The price was extremely reasonable - $20 if you pre-registered.  Not too shabby.

Overall, it was worth it to try it out.  And the proceeds went to a good cause - the tech and wellness fund for the local elementary school.  Would I do it again?  Maybe, but there are a lot of good runs in September up here that I'd like to try before I'd do this one again.

Today's Run

Today I ran 5k (or approximately 3.1 miles) in an official time of 24:47 24:51, for an average pace of 7:58 8:00.  Going out was pretty much downhill, so I did the first mile in 7:15.  Coming back, well, I pretty much died on the uphill so that brought my average pace WAY down.  But it was good enough for 2nd in my division so I got another medal.  Yay!  Not a PR though; my best 5k time was 23:52.  Boo. :-(

And with today's run I have officially hit 400 miles run this year.  And I have over 3 months to add on another 119 and beat last year's total mileage.  I think I can do it...

Update (9/30/2013): The official results were posted online and were slightly different than the results posted post-race; unfortunately the final result was a few seconds slower.  Didn't change the placing, so I guess I can't be too disappointed.