Brighton Chamber of Commerce 5K Recap

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! I had a great and very eventful weekend. I had a long weekend because my employer observed the 4th of July holiday on Friday, July 3rd. Saturday, July 4th I ran in the Brighton Chamber of Commerce 5K. This is the second time I have run this race, and I still enjoyed it as much as last year. Going into this race, I honestly did not have a goal in mind considering all that I've been through over the past three months. However, Friday, July 3rd marked 10 weeks from my heart surgery! I haven't been training, and I've been very lackadaisical with my running lately. More so because I'm still sore, and not feeling up to it. All of that is about to change though because Wine and Dine 1/2 training starts this week!

The Brighton 5K started at 8 am this past Saturday, and my running group wanted to meet for a group picture at 7:30. I met a few of my friends in the parking lot of the school around 7:15, and we walked down to the spot where we were supposed to meet up. As we waited for other members of our group to show up, we chatted about what our plans were for the day and the rest of the weekend. A few minutes after 7:30 and everyone who had responded to the race event was there and we were able to get our picture.

(Team RWB)

After we grabbed our photo we walked back to the school where the race was set to start. As we waited more and more of our friends began to show up.

(Mel, Nita and me)

Our friend Krista arrived with her baby, so we had to get another group shot with the newest Team RWB member!

Then we all made our way to the start and headed out. Like I said I had no real goal in mind, I just figured I would do what I could do, I just wanted to finish the race in 40 minutes. I started out just running and not even starting my timer, then eventually I started my timer and did 1:1 run/walk intervals. The race started off on S. Winton and had runners turn right onto Westfall road. I did my first mile in just over 11 minutes. From Westfall we turned onto Avalon Drive and weaved through the neighborhood until we made our way up to Elmwood Avenue.

Around mile 2, I started to get tired, so I changed my intervals to 1:2 run/walk, but looking at my time I was doing relatively well, and thought that maybe I could finish the race in 35:00. The race had us run about one block on Elmwood Avenue before turning right back into the neighborhood onto Bonnie Brae Avenue. Runners stayed on Bonnie Brae Avenue until we turned left onto Danbury Circle North. Danbury took runners back to S. Winton where we turned left and headed straight for the finish.

(Source: Yellow Jacket Racing)

When I turned onto S. Winton and headed towards the finish, I looked at my watch to see I was awfully close to 35:00, but I knew I wasn't going to make it. I continued to trudge along, soon I came up to the loop in front of the school, and I saw 3 of my teammates there cheering for me. Nita yelled out to me that she had a glass of water waiting for me (thank god). I finished, stopped my watch, and looked at my time, 36:03. Dangit, Hey, at least I tried. All in all, I'm really happy with that time considering I've really only run 5 times since my surgery in April. I walked back to where my teammates were cheering and watching the other runners come into the finish. Once all of our teammates had finished, a few of us decided to head down to the Starbucks on the corner to grab a well deserved iced coffee and breakfast sandwich.

QOTD: Did you run in a 4th of July event? What's your favorite 4th of July tradition?