K5K at Spring Valley Park Race Recap
On Saturday I completed my first 5K since getting pregnant and having a baby!! Woohoo! I cannot believe it has been so long since I ran an actual race (this exact same race two years ago). I am excited to do a few more races this summer and improve my time!
My sister, Becca was visiting for the weekend and she ran the race with me. Due to my Grandpa passing away, my mom wasn’t able to watch Layla so she also ran her first 5K with us!
The race didn’t start until 9:00 so we left our house about 8:00. Spring Valley Park in Parchment is only 20 minutes away, but they had same day packet pickup so we wanted to make sure we had enough time to get our stuff together before the start.
We got to the park right at 8:20 and got in a short line to get our packets. Sadly, even though we had both preregistered and ordered shirts, they had given away the sizes we selected. That was irritating, disappointing, and unprofessional. We were given shirts in different sizes (what they had left) but I was pretty incredulous that they were so flippant about the mistake.
We then went ahead and got in line for the port-a-potties. and then headed to the start line. This race was the season finisher for Let Me Run, a program similar to Girls on the Run, but for boys. Because of that there was a lot of good energy and crowd support.
At the gun we took off towards the back since we had Layla in the stroller. Becca volunteered to push the stroller which was awesome for me! The race wound through the park and was very scenic and pretty. It had a one mile loop that you repeated twice and then the second mile wound around a lake. There was only one small elevation so it was a fairly easy course.
We ran most of our miles at 10:00 pace and walked twice, for about a minute each time and the one mile and two mile marks. (I had been doing a 7 minute run and 1 minute walk on my training plan, so this was great for me!)Â 
My sister was so encouraging the whole last mile and we kicked it in at the end for a 33:07 time. I actually placed 5th in my age group and Becca placed 4th in hers. Layla would have placed second in her division (girls 1-10) but it seemed a little ridiculous to register her. I’m not going to say Layla was a fan of racing, but she made it through.
The organizers had a nice spread of a yogurt bar with lots of fruit, bananas, and bagels post race which was awesome! Â We hung around for a bit and then loaded up and headed home.
We’ve spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at our camp’s Memorial Day Weekend conference. Saturday was gorgeous so we got to go out on the boat for awhile and then play at the beach. Yesterday, we took Layla up to the splashpad for the first time and she loved it! This summer is going to be so much fun with her!
What did you do this weekend? When was the last race you ran?Â
Linking up to Erin & Katie!
Awesome job on your firs 5K with Lyla.
Thanks girl! It was fun…at least for me. Haha!
thats really too bad about the shirts! the best part of signing up for a race is the swag that you get at the end! (and the race itself too i guess… hahaha). Well you look great and congrats on your first race back!!
Yeah, I was kind of bummed about it and the way it was handled. Don’t mess with my t-shirt. Haha!
congrats on getting back to racing! be super proud of yourself..and Layla! i actually had my first race in two years yesterday as well!
What!?! Go us! I was kind of amazed it had actually been that long, but yup, it sure had!
Great job, Kate! I really want to get back into running races. Three kids 4 and under makes it hard to get out and train. But they’ll get older, so someday soon hopefully I’ll be able to 🙂
Yes, definitely not easy and taking Layla was not exactly ideal, but we made it work for now. After bedtime is my new favorite running time since it is light so late, but you are right: there are seasons for everything.
Sounds like a fun race! Bummer about the shirts since collecting & wearing the shirts is such a great perk of racing – whenever they don’t have my size, I always end up sizing it up and wearing it as a sleep shirt, which works, too, I guess 🙂
Yeah, I totally agree…the weird thing was they were all out of the larger sizes. I ordered a men’s medium and they didn’t have it or a men’s large. I had to go with a woman’s fit in a smaller size. I just hate for my workout tops to be all clingy to me, ya know? Oh well. It’s just a shirt I guess.
Great job! I remember my first race post partum, and I was pretty proud (even though it was so hard for me)!
Ooh a race. I’m kind of getting antsy to do a race myself, and I’d love to do a 5k soon! I wanna be a mama like you someday!