The Granite City 5K Race Report!

My daughter Kay and I drove up to St. Cloud to run in a 5K that was put on by the St. Cloud River Runners. The Granite City 5K is a small race that attracted almost 200 runners. We arrived at Heritage Park at 7:15 AM. We walked to the check in tent and registered for the run. It was raining so we walked back to the car to wait a little bit to see if the rain would taper off. Sitting in the car I was able to see tons of fellow River Runners who were either running in the 5K or manning their spots to volunteer:) Here is a picture of me and my friend Deb....she had already ran nine miles earlier in the morning! She was running the 5K as a part of her training run. Before the run fellow River Runners Yvette and George asked if I wanted to warm up. We ended up just doing a mile and coming back about ten minutes before race start. During the warm up we made note of the course. It was going to be challenging because it was not a typical road race. The course was set in Heritage Park made up of a mix of asphalt trails, gravel trails and mostly grass. It was wet and muddy:) We were cautiously watching our steps because there were several places in the course where the surface was uneven. I remember running this course last year and it was a tough one. George made a comment about how this was not a race to try to PR in:) So true!

Here are just a few random shots that I took before the race. Notice the umbrellas in the picture:) It was raining during our race.

Yvette is the runner in the pink running shirt and black hat:)

Cathy and Edda are in this picture. This picture was taken as our race director was giving us instructions and information about the course.

George is the guy in blue taking a picture of his kids who also ran in yesterday's race. Kay and I talked about what our goal time would be and we agreed that we were both going to come in under 26 minutes. We were joking before the race because neither one of us are really in any shape to be racing a 5K:) I have been running half marathons all spring and summer....not really working on speed! Kay has been doing basketball camps and track camps. She has gone on a few of the high school cross country practice runs where they just go out on easy two milers:) She has also ran with me a few times...easy running and slow pace. We placed ourselves in the middle of the pack and took off after the voice command start. We stayed together for the first mile and kept a decent steady pace. Kay was keeping up and doing well running pretty much right next to me. After the mile marker she fell back a bit but I kept looking back and she was always just a little behind me. I kept on running at an easy pace...I made note to myself that I was never sucking air:) Last year I sucked air the entire race....LOL! Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a blurr of blue and knew that it was Kay. She stayed just a step behind me. I kept on talking to her telling her that she was doing well and that we were keeping up a respectable pace. It was at mile two when I figured out that the blurr of blue was not Kay and that I had been talking to a stranger over the last mile:) She must of thought that I was a nut:) I thought that she was my daughter so I was telling her to watch her step, take quick little steps up the grassy hill and other random stuff! Well, blurr of blue passed me and I turned around to see Kay still behind me. I slowed down and kept looking back every few minutes. She gave me the I am so annoyed with you look and stop turning around to look at me glare:) She gave me the hand signal to move on without her and yelled, "Just go mom, I don't need a babysitter!" Alrightly then, I only had about a half of a mile left and just kept up the same pace until I could hear people and made the last turn and ran up the final stretch. I then kicked it into gear and sprinted it in hard:) After walking through the finisher's corral I heard Pat and Mark yell, "Julie we didn't get your finishing picture...for some reason it didn't work." At first I thought that they were kidding. Mark was smiling and shaking his head:) Just after turning around I noticed that Kay had already finished and was sitting on the ground looking like death:) According to my Garmin made our goal of coming in under 26 minutes!

Here is Kay...thrilled to be done:)

Here is a shot of Deb and Gene.

This is photographer Pat and his helper Mark. I went over to talk to them and they did tell me that I would have to run through again for a finish picture:)

I gave Kay all of my things and ran through the final stretch one more time:) Pat asked me when I finished and I told him just to put me somewhere in the middle. Pat, if you are reading this my daughter is thrilled that it looks like she finished before me....you are her new best friend:)

After grabbing a water, banana and cookie Kay and I just waited for the awards ceremony. After the awards were given out we headed to the tent to take a look at the results. I was curious to see who took third place for my age group. There are two very speedy girls in my age group who took first and second place.....Kalli 20:30 and Lisa with a time of 21:23! Kalli was looking at the results too and we started chatting. I asked her who took third for our age group and she said that the winner was not here and must of left after the race. We looked at the board and figured out that it was me who took third! Kalli walked over to one of the volunteers and explained that I didn't hear my name being called. She then gave me my third place age group medal:) This was my second to worst 5K time...I finished in 25:23. Kay finished about 35 seconds after me with a final time of 25:58! We both were happy to come in under 26 minutes but also want to shave time off of our 5K race by the end of the season. My PR is 23:10 and Kay's PR is 24:03....can we say speed workouts:)

This picture was taken after we got home:) My little man wanted to be in the picture too!

Happy running, biking, swimming and lifting! Cheers to you all!

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