Willow Creek 5k recap

So I woke up at 6:30 and my breakfast was a honey wheat English muffin with peanut butter, two wedges of pineapple, and a half gallon of water. I dressed in a long sleeve black runner's shirt, my gray Wheaton Academy alumni 5k t-shirt, black mesh shorts, white quarter cut Adidas socks, and Brooks Brothers sneakers. Mom and I left the house around 7:15 and drove the 45 minutes to Willow Creek Church for the 2nd annual 5k.

I immediately headed over to the registration booth. I had taken care of Mom and I the previous night, but since my friend Courtney was unable to race, I went ahead and picked up her materials for her. That way, she could at least get her t-shirt, I'm excited to give it to her this weekend, she has no idea. The sky was a perfect blue with the sun shining bright, barely a cloud to be found. But with the temperature hovering around 35 degrees, I headed straight inside the church where I found other people from the Section 305 singles group.

After some catching up and warmup stretches, I put on my black winter hat, lined up in the 7-9 minute mile group and we started the race at 9 pm. I ran at a pretty fast pace and felt pretty good except for my hands being cold. I saw a marker for Mile 2, but not 1 or 3. With about a half mile to go, I really wanted to turn it up and sprint hard to the finish. But I had run had a pretty quick pace that I just didn't have a whole lot of push at the end. Nonetheless, the encouragement from the spectators helped and I kept going. I knew I could not stop. I looked up ahead and saw the clock read 23:50, though I knew was a little bit ahead of that since I started the race a little bit later. Regardless, right then, I made it my goal to cross the line before the 24:00 mark and I just made it across. I nearly collapsed, but I managed to make my way over to the snack table and wolfed down a banana, two mini bagels, two Nature Valley bars, and guzzled a bottle of water. Then I headed towards the sidelines and high-fived and encouraged hundreds of other finishers.

I caught up with my friends and I also ran into Erin Chan from my high school as well. I checked my overall time and it was 23:33.3, or 7:34 per mile, good enough for 72nd out of 2800 runners. In my division, 31-35 year old males, I came in 6th out of 78 runners. The leader in my division finished at 21:11.2, 19th overall. Maybe next year, I'll shoot for a medal, which would be in the Top 3 in my division. To do that, I'd have to trim another two minutes off my time. It would be a challenge, but maybe I actually could do it. Mom did a heck of a job. Out of 143 runners in the 55-59 female division, she came in 40th at 47:28.1, or 15:15 per mile. I was especially proud that she was able to run the last leg of the race, I never expected her to do that. Great job by her.

We left around 10:45 and went to Big Bowl for some Asian food. Shrimp pad Thai, lettuce wraps, beef and broccoli, fried rice, it was all quite good. And their homemade ginger ale actually tasted like it had ginger in it! It was a really strong drink actually, I liked it a little bit, but next time, I'd get the one with orange juice in it. And major thanks to Angel's Feet for the hour long massage! My feet especially thank you.