Twilight 5K Recap

I'm a bit tired at the moment...this is going to be short and sweet. It's almost 9pm...I need to get some sleep for tomorrow's swim race!
We left Noosa at 2pm...most of the people traveling to Mooloolaba were the World Cup athletes. When we parked at 2:30, they had about 2 hours to do some training, check out the water conditions, grab some food, and then attend the pre-race meeting at 4:30.
That left Haven and I (the non-WC athletes) about 3 hours to kill until our 6pm race start. We hung out watching the waves (they were BIG...it's going to make for an interesting race start on Sunday)! We wandered through the race expo, grabbed a bit to eat, and then checked in and got our timing chip and number. I was number 24.
With about 50 minutes until race start, I headed out for a long warm up...my legs and hips have been pretty sore and I wanted to make sure they were warm and loose before I ran hard. We checked out the race course...surprise...there's a nice big hill in the middle! So we had to run up and down the hill 3 times...I planned that into my pacing strategy: "don't go too hard too fast or I'm going to die on the last lap!"
The race started on time...it was a crowded start with little kids sprinting out front like they always do. I hung back on the first lap and then started inching past people...mainly keeping track of how many women were in front of me. On the final lap, I realized that I was pretty cemented in 4th place so I mental backed off from killing myself for money (top 3 only) but finished hard enough that I didn't even glance at the time clock...I did hear them announcing me as the "Aquathlon World Champion" though:).
As I staggered through the finish shoot and kept walking down the road for a cool down, Haven was waiting and said he thought I finished at 18:0? !! Sweet! I can't believe that I ran a BEST TIME on that tough course! Big smiles here:) The 18:0? (7ish we think) has also been confirmed by my roommate Margie. Now, I'm on my computer and I looked up the results which have already been posted on the race website...and I had a good laugh because it says I finished in 16:29...haha! All the times are really weird...the first place girl apparently went a 14:55 and Haven ran a 14:21! Hopefully they will be fixed and I can see my official finish time soon.
After the race I did a bit of cool-down jogging and then showered and changed into dry clothes (even though the race was at 'twilight' it was still maddeningly hot and humid and I was completely drenched)! After a few minutes of relaxing, my appetite came back and I had time to order a chicken kebab before cramming in the team van for a ride home.
That's my story...now I'm going to climb into bed and crash until my alarm goes off for the morning group ride! I've got to bust out a 2.5 hour hard ride tomorrow morning from 6-8:30am and manage to shower, eat, pack, and depart by 9am for Mooloolaba again. The swim race starts at 10:30am...wish me luck, there's prize money and personal-body-surfing-revenge on the line for me at this one!