Firecracker 5k

We've run a race on the 4th of July almost every year for a very long time. Our favorite is the one we run in my hometown while visiting my parents. It is run on a golf course with the race split between running in the grass and on the cart path. It makes for a difficult course when there has been a decent amount of rain. Going into this year's race there had been rain off and on all weekend so we knew we were in for a wet and muddy race. Once the race director started giving instructions about the course we realized they had changed the course from previous years and we would be running the majority of the race on the cart path with just a few trudges off the path. Thank goodness because the sections we ran through the grass were a soggy mess with puddles of water hitting above my ankles. My goal for the race was to run faster than the Starry Night 5k in June. I had run the race in an average of 6:57 pace for the course which is slightly less than a full 5k, finishing in 21:03. My plan was to go out around 6:55 for the first mile and go from there. It was just me, my dad, and Ty for this race. Mom was signed up but had been sick and the kids were still asleep when we were getting ready to leave, so she stayed home with them. One of my favorite part of running races is running a cool down out to my mom and finishing the race with her as I give her a recap of how my race went. I was disappointed she wasn't able to go, but I was thankful the kids were able to sleep in.

Ty and me in our shirts made by Elise.

Dad, Ty, and me in our race shirts. Carter wanted to be in the picture with us.

We took off from the start and I was around 4th female. By the first half mile I had caught up the the 2nd female and ran with her for a bit. I caught up to the 1st female shortly after that and ran with her for most of the first lap. The course is 2 laps around the golf course. We went through the first mile in 6:49 which was faster than I had planned so I was prepared to be uncomfortable during the second mile and most likely slow down considerably. Turning a corner toward the end of the first lap the girl I was running with wiped out in the mud. I slowed to help her up but she bounced right back up. I asked her if she was okay and she said she was. At the end of the first lap I pulled ahead of her and was running alone. I still felt really strong and my legs weren't fatigued like I had expected. I went through the second mile in 6:49 and was pumped I had maintained pace so well. I started really pushing the last mile, knowing I could really kill my time from the Starry night. I focused on catching up to a couple of guys ahead of me. I hit mile 3 in 6:44 and took off to kick it in toward the finish. I could see the finishing clock just kick over to 21 minutes as I rounded the corner and was pumped knowing I wouldn't be much slower than my time at the Starry Night on a course that was actually a full 5k. I finished the 3.14 mile course in 21:12, an average of 6:45 per mile!

After watching dad finish I ran back to Ty and finished the race with him. Then I took off to finish out my cool down. I got back a little bit before the awards ceremony started. I was the first female finisher, so also the first in my age group. When I was walking back over to dad and Ty after picking up my medal I heard someone say, "Did you see? There's your mommy," and was so excited to look over and see Carter come running toward me followed by Elise in mom's arms. Dad also got a medal, finishing first in his age group and Ty came through a little over 30 minutes. We headed out for our traditional McDonald's breakfast after the race. It was an awesome race with a bit of drizzle the entire time and extremely cool temps, in the high 60's/low 70's, for this time of year. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much faster I ran than I had expected and I was even more pleased with how consistently I ran with a negative split! Now I'm looking forward to my 10k in August even more than I already was! I sure do love running races. Read about last year's Firecracker 5k here. I shared a brief recap of the 2014 Firecracker 5k in my July 4th post here and a full post on the 5k in 2013 here.