Fools 5K Race Report (2017)
Earlier in the year, my older brother asked me if I was coming to our hometown to run the Fools 5K on April 1. My brother is interested in running a 5K? Of course I’ll be there! I ended up signing up myself, him, his two kids, his wife, and our dad (after their consent of course!).
Chevy, Mom, me, Dad, Thomas, Nicky, Nick, and Alyssa
This race is fantastic. The race director is extremely organized, an excellent communicator, and works at improving the race each year. This year, they offered the option to pay less and not get a shirt*, had an app for the race, and had free finish line pictures/videos**. And they had the usual amazing atmosphere (including encouraging people to dress up for April Fool’s) and awesome finish line food.
This race is very competitive! A new course record was set this year – 14:58. The first and second overall women were in my age group and came in at 18:03 and 18:28! Since it’s so competitive, this time and the last time I ran it, I entered in the Athena Division, in hopes I could place there.
When I signed up at the end of January I thought maybe I could run a course PR – faster than 23:06. But pretty soon after that thought entered my head, it left it. Ha. I don’t feel like training (and mostly, eating) like that right now. So I decided to see if I could run even 8:00 minute mile splits for the race, and not feel like death at the finish from positive splitting like I usually do at 5Ks.
We had fantastic race morning weather – mid 30s at the start and high 30s at the end, sunny, and a wind of 4 mph! That was it for wind!!! It would have been a perfect day to PR!
I started out and ran my first mile in 7:57. Yay, right on pace!
I ran my second in 8:00 flat. I hoped not to slow down for the third mile, but felt that typical “racing” stomach pain at mile 2, even though I was taking it easy! Grrrrr.
But I ran the third mile in 7:58! Phew! And finished the last tenth (but actually more because this race is crowded and I didn’t run tangents properly, dammit) at a 7:41 pace! My official time was 25:08.
Despite not pushing myself too hard, I still felt like toast at the end!
I did a cool down run and saw my older brother and his youngest son. I kept running and saw his older son, and ran in with him and Mario (you know, from Super Mario Brothers). Then I spectated with my mom until my dad and my brother’s wife finished (they walked together).
Then we hit up the awesome food tent – breakfast burritos, cookies, bagels, donuts, yogurt, caramel corn, oranges, bananas, and chocolate milk! (After the race they gave away everything that was left over!)
I looked up my results in the food line and saw I placed first in the Athena Division so we stayed for the awards ceremony.
Everyone had a great time, and there’s already talk of wanting to do it again next year, yay! I’m in!
*Only my dad wanted a shirt, but for some reason, they had one for one of my nephews at packet pickup. So on race day, we went to buy a shirt for my other nephew (because you can’t only give one of them a shirt). Shirt exchange/purchasing was opened thirty minutes before the race, and when we got up there, they said that the shirts were free! So I ended up getting one after all, ha ha.
**I was all excited to see my free race photo, but the link on my page didn’t show me finishing. I watched my video to see my clock time and looked around at other photos for that time and still couldn’t find it – there was a ten second gap of missing photos around my clock time. Then I realized there was a big clue in the video I watched – it shows the photo guy moving in front of the video camera as I run in, and the video camera guy tells him to go back behind the camera. Ha. I don’t think photos exist for those ten seconds!
Themocracy
Yay, congrats on that division win! That’s so cool that you got so many people in the family to do the 5k. Sounds like a fun race, I love races with people wearing creative outfits. I usually don’t but it’s still fun to watch the other people.
Thanks! I was super excited to have so many family members participating!
It was so fun to see the costumes! You can kind of see in the second pic these two green goblins – every time they ran by kids they would crouch down and make scary noises (it certainly scared me the first time – I was running right behind them!).
Congrats on placing first!!! That’s so awesome!
I’m happy that the race is so well-organized and has such a nice atmosphere, and how fun to do it with so many family members! That would be a nice annual tradition 🙂
Thanks!
I am hoping we can make a tradition out of it! 🙂
Nice job, hitting your pace times like you wanted! Love that everyone who wanted to participated in the race, and it’s great that you won your AG!!
Thank you!!! 🙂 I wonder if more family will want to do it next time!
This is AWESOME, congrats Kim!
Thanks!
Yay, way to go! Your splits are fantastic. I’m surprised by how competitive that race is! I expect those kind of times out of big time races, like ones organized by NYRR or the BAA or something, but certainly not a local race! Your hometown must have some speedy residents!
Thank you!
It’s nuts, right? People travel from all over the state for this race (and from IL, too, ha ha)!
Congrats at pretty much nailing your race plan and first place! Very cool that you got the free t-shirts. That post-race food seems too good to be true!
Thanks! We did this race two years ago and they had the burritos and my family remembered and hoped they would have them again. Ha ha, legendary post race food!
14:58?!?!? THAT IS CRAZY FAST!
It is always good when a competitive race is well run!
Wow, that is a really competitive field! Congratulations on an evenly run race. And you said you felt like toast at the end, so you know you put in a good effort as well! Do you feel motivated to train for your next/another race, or are you happy with the level of training you put in and the results you got out of it for now?
Thanks! I did feel like I must have worked hard when I felt that way at the end.
I am happy with the results, but being so far away from my PR (like… over three minutes slower) makes me think it’s time to be more serious about my health and training!