HH5k and Rotary 5k Race Recaps!

I am SUPER behind on these... what can I say, will make these as quick and painless as possible!

August 11 I ran the Huntertown Heritage Days Charger 5k - this race is typically a part of a local festival but this year there was an error in planning and it ended up being the weekend after the festival.  The 5k is run as a fundraiser for a local high school's track team.  Its a simple course through town - a loop that incorporates both pavement and gravel.  The race was well organized and everyone was very friendly.

I won't bore you with too many details, suffice it to say I did really well until I hit the gravel.  I am NOT used to it and I just didn't feel like I could get a good grip and keep my feet under me.  I still did fairly well, don't get me wrong - but I wasn't able to PR like I had hoped.  I managed to finish with a time of 24:06 and came in 2nd in my age group.

Just starting off

Source

After the 5k, they had a kids fun mile run, and while it wasn't super organized I was super impressed with the kindness of the track team kids there.  The kids had to run 5 loops to total a mile and my daughter just wasn't having a good day but every loop they cheered for the kids and even though she was a full lap behind everyone they stayed there and cheered her on the whole time - SUPER thankful for them, they made her day.  We would definitely do this race in the future, there aren't alot of perks, but everyone was friendly and its pretty inexpensive so to me that makes it a winner!

All those teens in the background (plus more) had been lined up to cheer for the kids!

Then, August 18 I ran the Anthony Wayne Rotary 5k at Shoaff Park.  This race benefits the Rotary as they work to eradicate polio.  The course is simple, two loops around the golf course.  Each loop includes a short, semi-steep uphill at the start and a nice slight downhill to end.  Again, I won't bore you with a bunch of race details but suffice it to say I ran this entire race at a hard pace.  I felt like I was dying, I had a target in mind ahead of me and I just couldn't keep up so I pushed and pushed as hard as I could.  I refused to give up even when it got hard.  At the end of one lap I was able to snag some water (thank goodness, I needed it).  That second uphill slowed me down more than I would have liked but I just kept pushing the best that I could.  

During the whole race I was doing math in my head... I had hopes of getting a PR, so with each mile split I was trying to see if it was still within reach.  Needless to say, I am no good at math while running so I had no clue, so I just ran as fast as my lungs would let me. (I say lungs, because my legs were fine!) As I neared the finish line I was elated to see that I could indeed PR so I pushed as hard as I could to cross that finish line - I ended up finishing in 23:29.7 - a 14 second PR!  I was so happy that I PRed that I couldn't be disappointed in taking 3rd place in my age group instead of 2nd.   It was a good day, and I am happy that I finally PRed the 5k this year - now its time to focus on marathon training! 

So fast my skin can't keep up! hah

Almost done!

3rd in my age group

These kids are EVERYTHING to me