Stampede in the Park 5k and a lesson learned

So we did this one last year and it has the dubious honor of being my slowest 5k ever.  This year, I finished in 29:03, good enough for a 7th in my age group, but third finished in 28:11, which I should have been able to beat easily.  So now I'm kicking myself for not pushing through and going for a faster time. Oh well, live and learn, right?  This is a good lesson about goal setting.  I won't go into another race without a time goal that I'll push towards.  I'd like to think that if I'd had the Garmin (mine bit the dust, so now I'm waiting on my replacement and Haakan and I are sharing his, and he had it for this race) it might have made a difference, but probably not.  Next year I will seriously rock this race.  The speedy pants I'm married to placed 3rd in his age group and won a coffers mug, which I will shortly be filling with coffee.

At least I look cute, right?