Firehouse Church 5k Recap

Today was the Firehouse Church 5k!

You know I think mornings are overrated.

Races in the morning? Not my fave either. For some reason, I thought it would be cool to eat a bunch of pizza last night, and I woke up with a  stomach ache. Genius, right there. So I was my normal, whiny pre-race self.

Can you tell how impressed I am with myself?

Kevin kept trying to tell me it was a “fun run.” The whole point of the race is to raise money for a neighborhood high school to buy bleachers. But I have a hard time considering any race just a fun run. Needless to say, none of us are in excellent running shape. I’ve been doing a lot more WOD stuff and have been pretty unmotivated to push for PRs. Blah, blah, blah. Excuses done.

I ran what I’d like to call positive splits.

Mile 1 - 7:08

Mile 2 - 7:33

Mile 3 - 8:27   <—- OUCH!!!!!!!

.13 – 51 seconds

Basically we ran DOWN from the Highlands (there’s a reason they’re called the Highlands!!!), ran around a little bit, and ran BACK UP!! Definitely an extremely difficult course!! My time was 23:58. Whew. Glad I made it in under 24!!! I am proud, however, because I really booked it in to the finish. Garmin says I was at 10.6 which is pretty fast for me!! There was a girl in front of me I wanted to beat. I had my eye on her the entire race, but was never within striking distance until the last quarter mile.

Do you know how badly I wanted to stop and walk up that hill? That everlasting hill? I just knew it would be so hard to start running again. I’m happy to say that I don’t think anyone passed me. Take that people who start fast on a downhill!!!!

I was the fifth woman to finish, beaten by a team of xc girls from the high school, and apparently one woman in my division sneaked in front. The fastest was only about 1.5 minutes ahead. I had to settle for silver in my age division.

Kevin James finished just a few minutes behind me. We had talked about running together, but once we got into it, it seemed better that we split up.

You know what helped make up for my less-than-stellar race?

Little Man Ice Cream was one of the race’s sponsors!! They had the cute little ice creams with the wooden spoons. Kevin and I are crazy about those little wooden spoons!!!!

32nd Treat was there too!! I’ve had this flavor once before — it’s Almond Vanilla. Made from almond milk! So good. They even brought the sprinkles!

And mini cupcakes!!

Pasquini’s also donated pizza! But I was hot, and it was early. It logically follows that I ate only ice cream and fro yo!

There was also a mini coffee shop!

We succeeded in eating back all the calories we had burned (and then some) before the door prizes and awards.

My gym gave away a free 3-month membership!!!!!!! I wanted to win that!!! I was considering trying to buy it off the girl who won it because she wasn’t from the neighborhood and said she wasn’t going to use it (eavesdropper!).

Overall, I think it was a huge success, and a really fun event to run. I think they should consider changing the course, but that’s just me. I think that would have been a difficult course to walk. However, I know they want to start/end at the church so that’s cool. And, of course, what really matters is that they were able to show some love to the high school both through 100% of the proceeds and the fact that both the football and xc teams were there participating! And eating ice cream.

You should probably run it next year!!! We got cool t-shirts too. I’ll have to show you sometime.

P.S. I just found the little ANT stick from my Garmin because I wanted to see all the elevation stats from this race. It has this cool new thing on the dashboard that tells you your PRs. My 5k PR from last year was 20:43. The proof is in the Garmin (granted, there was an elevation loss overall). I also have a 46:21 10k record from last spring running loops around Villa Olga Park in the DR. I was putting in some pretty serious mileage back in the day!!! I just am not sure if I’m ready to dedicate myself so 100% to one form of exercise any more. But it suffices to say, I’m not terribly thrilled with a 23:58. 

What’s the best thing you’ve ever gotten to eat after a race? Or best door prize? Fro yo. And I once won a spotted cow named Dotty when I was about 5 or 6. I was pretty excited about that!