Edison Festival of Light 5k

The 5k last night may be my new favorite. I can't wait to run it next year!

K and I pre-race

K, M and I drove downtown to park and walk to the start. This was an evening race, followed by a parade. As such, there were over 1300 runners and tons of spectators. I could hardly believe the atmosphere. I had expected this local 5k to be on the smaller side, but when K and I went to pick up our race packets in the early afternoon, we were shocked by the amount of traffic and booths.

Not to mention that as of 2pm people had already chained their chairs to the gutter to reserve spots for the 7pm parade.

It was extremely windy and in the high 50s for the race, so I dressed in long sleeves and wore my compression socks. (I wore them all day because I had run in the morning too, and after taking time off I wanted to be sure I recovered as quickly as possible.) I was a little warm at times when the buildings blocked the wind, but for the most part I was happy to have the layers.

New calf sleeves...love them!

 The course was a flat and fast out-and-back. It was really cool to see that they had shut down a section of the major highway for us to run on. There were tons of people dressed up with blinking lights, as superheroes, wearing chef hats...it was just a festive affair.

Start line. Check out that crowd...and the trees! Super-windy!

Running down 41 in the second km.

As this was my birthday race, M ran the entire thing with me. The crowd kept me motivated the entire way. As we neared the end, I thought I may finish in the 28s, which is my 2013 goal for 5ks. And by the time we saw the clock and the finish line, I could see the 28:00-minute mark ticking away. I was just barely too far to get there. I finished in 29:25, and for taking two weeks off and running a double, I'm very be happy with that.

M and me post-race.

After the race, M and I dropped K off with her family at a friend's house to watch the parade. We met up with some other friends at the big tent where they were serving pizza, pasta, dessert, beer, and presenting awards; then we headed out to meet up with another group for dinner and drinks, and caught some of the parade. It was a really good night. I'm excited to run it again next year.

Back to the Future!

My official stats were: 

19/60 female AG, 239/631 female over all, 705/1337 over all.

This was a great experience and confirmed that my priorities are back in order and I'm ready to get back into the races I really enjoy, instead of building up distance just for the bling. My head feels like it's in the right place. My excitement and happiness during this race really proved that to me. I can hardly wait for next month's races!

ABK