The Forest City Road Race is my must-do race, the one I just can't miss. I must admit that I have only ran two so far, but they won't be the only ones - I will run this one every year as long as I can.
Part of the reason it is so special is because in 2012 it was the first race my daughter and I had ever run (we caught the racing bug because of it!), and also because it is so well organized and the volunteers are amazing!! All along the course the volunteers are there clapping and cheering you on; they keep you motivated and have such energy, it just seems to give you more energy to run faster.
My daughter and I were excited to run this year's 5k race again (next year I'm aiming for the 10k!!). I had my hubby drive us and he was supposed to drop us off close to the starting area so I didn't have to worry about parking. Unfortunately he took a wrong turn and we got stuck in traffic that had stopped for the half-marathon group to run through. With only 10 min until the start of the 5k, my daughter and I knew we'd never make it in the car, so we got out and ran/speedwalked to the starting area. We were still a couple blocks away when we heard the starting gun go off. Talk about disappointed!! We kept on going, and got to the starting line and saw that they were tearing it down. Looking around, I found a race official and asked if we could still go. He just said he needed to take a picture of our race bibs and then we could go. So, five minutes after the starting gun went off, we crossed the imaginary start line.
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| Our view of the field of runners after our late start. |
Needless to say, we were already tired from the run to the start line (I calculated it later and it was about 2km that we had to run to get there), and to top it off, we couldn't see anyone else who was in the race.
It felt pretty bleak, and our motivation was low, but soon we saw a few of the walkers in the race up ahead. My daughter would pick out a person, and that was our goal to pass that person. We were NOT going to finish last!!
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Getting close to the end, we had already passed a few runners
Photo credit: www.zoomphoto.ca
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So after passing each person, we'd set another person as a goal and try to pass them. It worked, it gave us small goals to move forward and we slowly kept passing people. I had planned to set a PR this race, but I don't think I did. For one, all we had for a time was the gun time (our chip on our bib wasn't activated because we were so late) so I don't know how we did, and we had already tired ourselves out running the 2km before the race and stressing out about not getting there fast enough.
Setting a PR doesn't matter, just being able to get to the starting line and running the race AND finishing it is what matters. Plus, my daughter and I did it together, motivating each other and sticking together. Well, we stayed together until the home stretch where she made her dash like she always does.
We got our medals and felt great! Tired, but great.
We almost did 10k, I think we can do that next year. That's the goal!
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| After the race and with our finishers' medals - we did it! |
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| My shoes, bling and bib. |
