The Running Collective took over the Firecracker 5k from the city and revamped it. I was so excited about it because the city had really let the race go downhill in the last few years. Last year they didn't have water for after the race and messed up pulling tags off people's numbers so didn't even have results. The change meant a course change as well, with the course being all paved rather than at the golf course and partially on grass. That was exciting because it would likely mean faster times, but not as exciting for me because my bone spurs tend to do better on softer surfaces. The race started later than usual at 8:00 so it was pretty warm for the race, but I wasn't complaining about sleeping in. I got up at 6:45 so I'd have time to do yoga before the race and ran a warm up to the start which ended up being about 2 miles. I didn't feel great on my warm up and was still feeling some fatigue in my legs from running a 15 mile long run workout the Sunday before the race, but I was hopeful the race would go better than I was expecting. I did a few strides toward the end of my warm up to test things out and still felt a bit off. I wanted to run under 22:00 minutes again, but figured between the fatigued legs and the heat, I wouldn't be too disappointed if it didn't happen.
I found Thomas before the race to put my phone in his car since I ran with it on my warm up. Then we headed over to the start line. The race took off and there were over 10 women ahead of me. By the half mile mark, I'd moved into 8th female and by the mile mark I was in 6th with 3rd-5th place females running together not too far ahead of me. My first mile split was 7:04, right around where I wanted to be. I passed the girls ahead of me and saw the 2nd place female was fading quite a bit. I focused on looking ahead and reeling her in, little by little. A little before the 2nd mile mark we came out on Centennial and had a slight incline for a while which I really felt in my fatigued legs. I kept telling myself to keep that 2nd mile close to 7:00 pace so I could close the last mile strong and be in a good place to get under 22:00. My 2nd mile was 7:07 and I told myself that was okay, I could still run under 22:00, I just needed to close really well the last mile. Around in here, I caught the girl running in 2nd place. I encouraged her to come with me, but she looked behind us and immediately slowed when she saw there weren't any other females close behind.
I was picking off the men ahead of me and when we turned onto Ford with about a half-mile to go, the guy I passed encouraged me to pick off the 3 guys ahead of us. I had just looked down to see I was averaging 7:30 pace for my lap pace which meant that would be my split for the last mile of the race so I knew I had to get going. I took off and pretty quickly overtook all 3 of the men. I was working really hard to push my lap pace back down to 7:00, but I ended up running my last mile in 7:14. Turning the last corner to the finish, one of the guys passed me back, but I held the rest of them off with a finishing kick of 6:36 pace. My finishing time was 22:16 which I wasn't too happy with, but I also knew I went into the race with fatigued legs compared to fresh for the Aquarium Run and it was around 15 degrees warmer for this race than it was for that one. I've found as I've gotten older, the heat affects me a lot more than it used to. I was 13th out of 226 overall, 2nd out of 146 females, and 1st out of 40 in my age group. I saw Thomas who finished in 21:40, good for 9th overall and 2nd out of 17 in his age group. I grabbed a water and then headed out on my cool down. I watched dad finish in 27:17 which put him 52nd overall and 1st of 4 in his age group. I continued on my cool down out to mom and then walked back in with her. She finished in 1:00:52 which put her 215th overall and 6th in her age group.
