My second 5K race of the year was this past Saturday! After I ran my first one of the year back in March, I wasn’t sure when I’d be running another race. But it seems like a lot of the local races are coming back this year, so I decided to sign up for one in June and one in July—both I’ve actually run before.

This one on Saturday was my first time doing it, and I signed up to do it with a friend, Aubrey, from the ice cream shop. I hadn’t seen her in a few years—we both have full-time jobs and when we were at the shop we’d work different shifts—so it was nice to catch up with her for a bit before the race.

They had early packet pick-up on Thursday and Friday, so I stopped by Friday after work to get my shirt and bib before race day. It was at a local State Farm office—the agent was one of the race sponsors—and her dog was there in the office who I got to pet, which was a highlight of my afternoon.

The race started at 9:00 a.m. Saturday and it was actually in town so my drive wasn’t too long. We both got there around 8:40ish, and I think this is one of the few races I’ve been to that started right on time. The weather was colder than I would have preferred; it was about 50 degrees and completely cloudy, which you can see in the picture I took from the starting line.

A nice thing about this race is that they closed off the roads where we were running and had police stationed at the intersections, so we didn’t have to worry about any traffic. I’ve run a race before where we were on a main road and traffic wasn’t shut down, so you have to keep an eye out for cars.

The entire first mile was a straight away and we were running directly into the wind. It was great 🙃 I wore a long sleeve shirt and cropped capri leggings, and I was fine in that—not too hot or cold—but I would have loved better weather for the race.

There was a water station around the 1.5 mile mark, so I stopped to get a cup. Also around this mark was when Aubrey picked up her dog from her parents’ house—which we ran by—so her pup ran the rest of the race with us. And he did pretty well. I did stop to walk a few times on the second half of the course but overall I felt pretty good running. I hadn’t run since the weekend before, which I’m definitely feeling today with sore legs.

I made sure I ran the last part to the finish line, and I could see the clock at the line getting closer to 35:00 so I booked it for a sub-35 minute time. My chip time was 34:47 and my overall finish was 78/114. I was home by 10:00 a.m. and took a well-deserved post-run shower. I’d definitely do this race again next year; it was a pretty easy course and I like to support local causes, which this race does through the rotary club in town.