Race #4 of the Season: Lone Tree Liberty Dash

I've been putting off this recap because I was not happy with this race. This is the old neighborhood 5K, it was my first race ever. It's also one of the hardest courses I've ever done.

I had the Fourth of July off this year and our friend Mike was in town, so the three of us decided to run it. We woke up early, drove to my parents' house, walked down to the park to register, registered and then walked back to the house to eat some breakfast. After some eggs and oj, we jogged down to the park as a warm up and then started stretching ... and took some photos.


Brandon and Mike.


The three of us.

The kids fun run went off and then it was time for us to line up.




Aaaand we're off!

The first mile is all uphill. The trail we start out on is actually behind my brother's house and he must have heard the race hubbub and come out on his back porch, as we saw him running and we waved at each other.

I actually wore calf sleeves for this race as my legs were trashed from riding up Stage as were my lungs (and my lungs still are, if i'm being honest). The lungs hurt badly on that first hill.

Mile one? Felt slow. I know it was over 10 ... Soon after, I also started getting gastro issues. Most of mile two to the finish I really wanted to poop. All runners know that when that happens ... the run typically goes downhill. In this case, it was literal and metaphorical, as the last mile of the race is all downhill.

Not soon enough, I came rolling to the finish:



And moments behind me (you can see him in the white in my photo), Brandon:



Right after the finish, I booked it to a porta-potty. Ugh, misery.

Final Stats:
Time: 30:22
Pace: 9:48/mi
Overall Rank: 134/287
Gender Rank: 42/143
Division Rank: 5/18 (F20-29)

Second fastest time on this stupid course. I've cracked 30 on this course only once ... and will probably never do it again unless the stars align perfectly.

Stupid race.