New Races

Over the past few years, I've had pretty much the same runs, over and over again. This year I finally got to do a new one. First was the Firecracker run, which I haven't posted about here yet.

I won entry into the Lennox Firecracker 5K via the Runner's Block fun0run. I hadn't been running a lot, but since I also signed up for 5K in a week after this, I thought maybe it'd be good to get a practice run in.

So Wednesday morning, July 4, I got up and traveled to Lennox to get signed up. I was a little nervous - for one, I've never been to Lennox and two, I had no idea where I was going. Plus, I only knew of one person who was for-sure going to be there, and I wasn't sure how I'd meet up with her (that ended up not being a problem).

Anyway, I got there early, which was good because there are a lot of people who don't pre-register so the line got long in a hurry. It was a decent run - not super well marked at the start, but people seemed to know where they were going. There wasn't official time, but I don't think I did too bad. It was a beautiful morning for a run, for sure.

Well, then today FXB decided to host a Farrells to Farrell's run. It ended up being about a 10K, which was awesome. People could either bike, blade, walk, or run it. I opted to run it and I'm happy to announce I ran almost all of it without stopping. I had one 1/4 block where I had to so I could avoid traffic, but for the most part I kept a steady (albeit slow) pace.

I decided to try my compression socks today since I've been having problems with my knees. And of course, I had to wear my standard race shirt - my lime green runner's dream shirt from Skirt Sports (who refuse to make more). And then I tried out my new shorts that are a little bright. Normally I wear black, but since this was a new run, I thought it good to try something new. 

The route was good, I will say. It was a good training run for TCM. The first mile was fairly flat (a couple hills, but nothing bad), but then right at mile 2 (like TCM) there's a steep hill over a bridge. That was perfect. And I ran up and over it without stopping. YAY! I have not been training like I should for TCM so this was a very important run.

It was kind of rainy and dreary, but it was fun to be out with so many folks who understand fitness, even if they don't all understand running. :)  And Farrell's was great in having water stops set up at appropriate places. The only bad thing was we had to fight traffic a few times, so that threw times off, but I tried not to focus on that.

Coming in at the end. I look fat. I have a lot of work to do. But it was fun to have so many people there that I work out with to cheer me on as I came in. And I wasn't the last one, which was also good. :) Our "prize" was a keychain with a little Farrell's boxing glove. :) Very nice.

Another fun aspect of this one is that I got to reconnect with my friend Sarah whom I used to run with . She and I became friends because we were stalking the same blog writer (how funny is that). She only lived a couple blocks away so she went and got her car and took me back to Southside. A bunch of my 5AMers biked the route so they just headed to the nearest bar for a drink to celebrate instead. :) Being the big drinker I am, it took all I had to bow out of that one. haha

The fun thing about both of these was the thrill of a new race and a new route. It's nerve-wracking but kind of exciting at the same time. TCM, St. Patty's, Avera's...those are all routine for me and I know the rhythm which make them easy to participate in, but trying something new was a lot of fun.