Moe's Burrito Dash 5k

Goal:
Win Prize Money

Actual:
3.1 mile warmup
5k race in 19:04 with Burrito, 2nd place, $1000
3 mile cool down

PM:  6 miles with Laurie for ~14 miles total

Last year, I found this gem of a race, the Moe's Burrito Dash, with a very deep prize purse, but with a slight catch: you had to eat a burrito in the middle of the race.  Last year, only one other competitive woman showed up and it was a relatively easy win.  It helped that the race was short, that the burrito station was at mile 2, and that the burrito was about the size of a taco.  This year, the course was exactly 5 kilometers, the burrito station was at 1.5 miles, and the burrito was bigger.  To further complicate matters, there were six women with me in the burrito station.

Despite all of that, it was a blast because of two things: (1) Garrett and I got to take a mini road trip with Laurie down to the race, one of my favorite people in Charlotte and (2) Laurie, Pezz and I finally all toed a start line in the same race together!  Ironically, I had told Pezz about this race a couple weeks ago, questioning her decision to do the Tar Heel Ten Miler, which was further away and featured a smaller prize purse.  On Thursday, she texted me asking permission for her to run it. Pezz is so nice that I'm pretty sure if I had said NO WAY, she would have actually not run it.  Of course, I told her that I do not own the Burrito Dash and that she should definitely do it.  Knowing that both Pezz and Laurie have PRs that are minutes faster than mine, I didn't want to discount either of them before the race because I had done a decent job of eating my burrito last year.  Well, not this time around....

After a nice warmup with Laurie and Pezz, we all toed the line and waited for the signal.  Pezz effectively false started, but it didn't matter as we all followed a couple seconds later.  Pezz shot off to the front and another tiny girl went with her, but then fell back to where Laurie and I were.  After 1000m, Pezz was about 15m ahead of me and I was in second. I knew that Laurie, the tiny girl and a couple others were close, but I kept chugging through.  I didn't catch my splits, but I guess I went through the first mile in 5:15.  We got the burrito stand, and Pezz had taken about 2 bites.  After 10 seconds, Laurie, the tiny girl and two former college runners entered.  We were all stacked against each other and eating a burrito.  I couldn't breathe without snot shooting out of my nose, and I kept glancing at Pezz and Laurie to see where they were at.  At one point, I almost threw it all up but managed to keep it down.  Out of nowhere, Laurie downed her burrito and took off right before Pezz yelled "welcome to moe's" and I was left to follow in their dust about 10 seconds behind.  Another girl was right with me and I broke her after 400m.  Around 2.25, I caught up to Laurie (finally), told her GREAT BURRITO EATING and she told me to GET PEZZ.  I told her that another girl was close behind me and powered ahead.

At the finish, I crossed the line about 8 seconds back from Pezz and threw up as soon as I crossed.  The next girl, Christina Supino, a former Dartmouth runner, was close behind and then Laurie.  I was bummed that Laurie, Pezz, and I did not take the top three spots, but Laurie had just gotten an iron drip, so she was still recovering from that.  Fortunately, she is a great sport and was totally supportive of us and patiently waited for us to get our awards.  She did come away with 50 Moe's Bucks, but since they were only valid Columbia, she gave it to Christina, who lives there.

Overall, this year's experience wasn't nearly as positive as last year since I threw up and had a much more difficult time eating the burrito, but I had a lot of fun with some of Charlotte's fastest women!