Harvest Festival Race recap

Every year my parent's town hosts a Harvest Festival. Its basically two weeks of festivities. The first Saturday is the bike race and the second Saturday is the 5K race.  Although none of us ever participated in the bike race, my family has been running the 5K race for several years now.

I know this may sound silly, but this 5K race was actually my goal race for the year. After coming back from the Disney Marathon this year, I decided to do more local races and concentrate on smaller distances.  Another thing that has made this my goal race is that each year we run it, I'm the only one in my family that never places...womp womp!

Unfortunately my sister wouldn't be in town to run the race this year so it was just me and my dad and my running buddy Jay. Jay and I ran several races together this summer and he has been pulling out PR's like crazy but always just misses placing in his age group. But we both agreed that placing in your age group in your 30's is usually difficult because there is such a large field in that age division.  Those of you in your 30's, would you agree with that?

So anyway, my only goal was to do the best I could and come in under 30 minutes like usual. I had some pretty good training runs in the days before so I felt pretty confident that would happen, but hey, ya never know.

The race started at 9:30 which I think is normally a little too late for a race because it gets so hot but really, this day was a perfect day for running.  As far as local races go, this is probably one of the largest 5ks in the area.

I am familiar with the course because I have been running it consistently for over a month now. The only difference is that I was running on the sidewalks and not the roads.  I thought by running on the roads that I would pick up speed but to tell you the truth, the sidewalks were flatter then the road was. Because we had to run in only one lane, I was running near the edge and the road was banked. I don't think I ever noticed this in previous years because I hadn't run the race course anytime before the race.

Around mile one we turned on to the next road and that road felt better to run on. I was so thankful for the lady running beside me because she was keeping a great pace and it motivated me to keep up. I ran with her and we intermittently chatted for the first two miles.

 I saw my mom, Scott, Baylee, and Belle spectating a little after mile two. At this time a man ran up beside me and was talking to me. The last mile of a race is when you want to push and not when you want to be having a conversation. He said "so, you run like an 8 or 9 minute mile?".  I said I didn't know but just wanted to finish in under 30 minutes.  He said his goal was 29. He told me plenty about himself.  He asked where I was from, and how old I was.  He was friendly enough but I thought he asked a lot of questions.

As I ran around the last corner I knew I was for sure going to make it under 30 minutes but as I came closer to the finish line and could read the clock, I thought I could perhaps PR so I gave it an all out sprint!   There were two timing mats at the finish line and I didn't know which one actually recorded the finish time so I turned my Garmin off right after I stepped on the last mat. I'm glad I actually remembered to turn my watch off right away! That doesn't usually happen during a race.

Speaking of Garmin, I didn't look at my watch the entire time I was running so when I finally looked at my stats I was surprised to see that my first mile was actually ran at an 8:30 pace. That's good for me, I haven't seen an 8 on my watch in a very long time! Oh, and I was actually off a PR by a few seconds, but I didn't care. I was pleased!

So getting back to the race,  As soon as I walked away from the finish line I saw my friend and he was just over the moon because he finally place in his age group! He not only placed, he got first! Woo hoo! I was so happy for him!

Unlike years past, the water and snacks were actually placed right at the finish line. This made it very nice because my mouth was so dry and I desperately needed a water. In previous years the refreshments were in the yard beside the building where we register/pick up bibs which was across the street.

After congratulating my friend, I looked to see if I could see my own time. I couldn't believe it, I had placed too. Looks like I had placed second in my age group! I later saw that my dad had placed third in his. Wow, this was turning out to be a great race day for all of us.  A few minutes later the lady at the results table said she had an updated version of the results. My friend and I both panicked because we thought perhaps our placements had got changed, but ours all remained the same!

It seemed like they did the awards ceremony much earlier this year then they had done in the past. I wonder if they wanted to do it right away  while most people were still there and before they started wondering around the festival?  I like that they did the awards right away and I liked that they did them right at the finish line were everyone was already.  However, there were still people running and crossing the finish line as the announcer was giving out awards. I did not like this aspect and thought it was a little disrespectful to the runners who were just coming in. It was almost like telling them that the race was already over by the time they crossed.  Not cool.  But then again, I have never organized a race so I don't know what their time line was like.

Our little group of winners. 

It was nice seeing so many friends and family at the race today.  My Pappy even comes out each year to watch us run which is nice! Wish I would have thought to get a picture with him. I wish Lacey would have been here to run. I know she would have placed in her age group as well. -M

P.S Sorry this recap is longer than I thought it would be. Thank you if you read the whole thing!


We are linking up this race recap with the gals from TOTR.