If you've seen House of Cards, this peach might look familiar....
I took this on the way home, but it's a popular symbol of Gaffney.
We got up way too early this morning to travel to Gaffney for a 5k. It was the goal race for the Fleet Feet Training Program that I mentored the last 10 weeks or so. Gaffney is 90 minutes from my house, so we had to be in the car by 5:30. Luckily, the owner of Fleet Feet went early and picked up all of our bibs or I would have needed to leave even sooner!
The ride was painless and parking was a breeze. As I walked to Fleet Feet's tent, I saw this sign and started to worry about the race. It seemed a little thrown together, know what I mean?
There was a lot of confusion at the start, the 10k runners didn't all know where to go and many of them were lined up with the 5k runners.
They got it all straightened out and then, after a prayer, the race began. It's the first race I've ever been to that didn't start with our anthem, so it was a new experience for me!
The race started uphill, yikes! I was pacing Linda who wanted to do 2:1 intervals. This was her race and not mine, so we moved at her pace. It was a beautiful course, and it looped through town and back to where we started.
It wasn't hot but it was very humid, and very hilly, so we took it a little easy and kept it as close to the 2:1 as we could.
The one water stop was at around mile 1.75 and they handed out full sized water bottles instead of cups of water, which I loved in that weather. I had my Nathan fuel belt and plenty of water, so I didn't take one.
It was so great to cross the finish line with all of the Fleet Feet runners cheering us on. Some of the coaches met up with us and ran us in, and did the same for the runners who finished behind us. I'm not gonna lie, it made me a little teary.
Afterwards, Linda thanked me for helping her finish and a woman we didn't know thanked us as well. She was running a little behind us and was using my encouragement to run the race. It really made that 90 minute drive worth it!
After the race, I handed out some Shower Pill wipes and used one to clean up. I was soaking wet! It felt amazing to be sweat free and in clean dry clothes.
There were some outlets near by, so I finished up my steps and a few thousand extra doing some shopping.
Did you race this weekend?
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