Lewisburg Lights 5K -A night time race

 My second 5K of the season was the Lewisburg Lights 5K.  

This was a bit different than the 5K I ran the previous week since it was held at 7pm.

 I haven't ran this race in many years but knew it was another flat course. I didn't want to sign up prior just in case it ended up raining. I made sure I got there in plenty of time to find a close parking spot and to register. 

The people at registration seemed to have no clue how to handle things.  They were young college students volunteering. I told them that I needed to register. They took my name and gave me my bib number. I asked if they took cash or if it needed to be a credit card. They replied I am not sure we can take cash and the other lady is not here yet with the credit card machine so come back in a bit. 

Meanwhile my cousin arrived and needed to register as well and they told him the same thing. So we put our bibs on and continued to wait with family. 

Eventually we walked back up and asked can we pay yet? The young man said yes and we can take cash now. So we both paid and received a long sleeve race shirt. 
We were all lined up and ready to go. But then the race director announced there was going to be a few minutes of a delay. While we were waiting I asked another runner beside me if they had a strip on their bib for timing. She replied yes. My cousin and I both looked at ours and we did not have one. So we ran down to the booth to get our bibs switched. I asked the guy why we didn't get one originally he replied because we didn't pre register but you guys did pay so take these. Well of course we paid!  So we would have still been able to run the race just not get timed if we didn't? I didn't understand that part. I was hoping for an age group award so I wanted to make sure mine was timed.
We finally started the race after the small mix up. I'm glad we were a little delayed because if not we would not have been able to get new bibs. 

This is our crew waiting for the runners!  Since it was a night race, each of them had on glow necklaces and so did a lot of the runners! 
By this time it was very dark and we were running on streets in town. We had street lights and just the lights from the cars that passed by. I was running towards the front and passed a few people right aways. I was keeping a good pace and didn't seem to be struggling like the other week at the Harvest Festival Race, I think the weather had a lot to do with it. It was at night and much cooler than the previous week, perfect running weather. 
I was about a mile into it and I caught up with this kid. He couldn't have been more than 9 years old. He was moving pretty good so I thought I'll hang with him for a bit. About another half mile down the road I was feeling good so I pulled ahead. By this time no one was around me and I was wondering if I was even going the right way.
 Eventually I saw the volunteers with the flags so I knew I was going the right way. I continued to keep running and again I was by myself. They say to never look behind you because it loses you time, but I did because I wanted to make sure  I saw runners and was going the right way. They were in the distance, so I continued to run by myself. The course was two loops so once I finished the first time, the second loop was much easier because I knew which way to go. I still was by myself running. At this time I did not see any runners in front of me nor behind me since it was so dark. I knew I was reaching the end when I saw my family and other spectators cheering. 

After crossing the finish line I still did not know what I placed. After a few minutes I was asking around and I was told 2nd female finisher and 4th overall. So I couldn't be upset with that. 

After the race, there was a local band playing at one of the restaurants in town where the award ceremony was held. The race even gave us one free drink ticket to redeem. I ended up being 1st in my age group and received a cute mason jar drinking glass. I am so glad that the race had a slightly delayed start or I would not even have had a timing chip to even qualify for an age group award. 

Have you ever had a hiccup at a race that ended up having a positive outcome? -L

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