Lilac Festival 10K Race

Here in Rochester each spring we celebrate the Lilac Festival; http://www.rochesterevents.com/festivals-events/lilac-festival. I guess you can call it our city "flower".  At Highland Park where the event is held there is one part of the park that has tons of lilac trees and you can walk through the park and smell the trees in bloom. Since Lilac season tends to be very short the festival is typically beautiful or a flop depending on the lilac season we get.  This year they were in bloom half way through the festival, so not to bad.  The festival itself is like many others, lots of food and other vendors, free music on the lawn and on weekends they have arts and crafts vendors (which tends to be my favorite part).

This was the first year that I ran in the Lilac 10k. A few friends and I ran in it. This was my first race since the half marathon. My training has decreased significantly with the most I've run being 6.5 miles one time. I've enjoyed cutting back and running just what I feel like on any given day.  This race had a 5k which started and ended before the 10k. There was about 1,200 runners for the 10k. I finished in 51 min. and 10 sec. which I was pretty happy with.  I came in 360 out of 1,204 runners, 22 out of 114 females in my age bracket (30-34 and I'm at the tail end of the bracket), and 130 out of 676 overall for females.

I'm kind of happy to say I don't really have any other runs lined up other than the Warrior Dash. There are a couple I'm considering such as the Music4Everyone (that would mark the anniversary of my first race ever) at the end of June and a possible 5k 4th of July run. I just haven't wanted to comitt at this point. We'll see what I end up doing....

Okay- horrible pic of me but had to share as my friends picked on me. Instead of grabbing to halves from the bin I grabbed a whole and put the cream cheese on top. For some reason they found this hilarious.

After the race we walked through the lilac part of the park.

Color Run 2014 and upcoming races

The Community Service floor at the College I work for has been planning their very own color run for a few months now.  Today was the official race day and other than the weather everything went really well for them.   What's awesome is that the funds went to local organization to help them fund their programs (Hickok Center for Brain Injury).  Most of my co-workers and I supported the event in a myriad of ways in part because our student worker was organizing the race. I supplied a raffle basket, secured some other funds through the campus Wellness Committee, helped with race organization input early on in the planning process, promoted the race and ran in the race. My other co-workers volunteered (or rather I coerced some of them) in being the official DJ and assist DJ for the race and our reception was an overall supporter and helper throughout the event.  Check out the YouTube video that was made of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DouHYHMssdA

The event was designed successfully down to the last detail. Many clubs and organizations on campus helped out. There were plenty of volunteers, an official large time clock, a race map, bibs, t-shirts and sunglasses for runners, tons of great after race food and drinks, rockin music and awesome raffle prizes. (I haven't found out if I won any raffles yet but I'm keeping my fingers X!) **Update- nope I wasn't a winner.

The only disappointing part was the weather. It was cold, grey, rainy (though it stopped just before the race) and extremely windy right during the parts of the run that had the hills. Uggggg.......  Despite all of that my time was really good. I came in the top 10 out of about 160 runners with a majority of them being college students. Hooray for me! **update- received an email on 4/17/14 with the time results- I placed 6th overall and came in 2nd place for overall female. Boy I was right behind the 1st place female runner by like 20 sec. or less!

So here are the upcoming races I'm signed up for:
1. Mess a Dress 10k April 12th

2. Rochester Flower City Half Marathon April 27th-**Yes, I just signed up.  After many many horrible runs (I think my body was rejecting the thought of running for that long) I was able to run 13.5 miles without killing myself the other day.  I'm still slightly apprehensive about the race but will continue to train over the next 5 weeks, hope for good weather which means no WIND and do a lot of praying that I'll survive and my body won't revolt on me during the race. Goal: Finish without walking. Bonus: Finish in 2 hours or under.

3. Lilac Festival 10k May 18th

*I had really wanted to run in the Corporate Challenge Race and have been helping my college to take part in and then just this past week I found out that the summer session one class I'm taking is on Tues. and Thurs. evenings right smack in the middle of the race which is on a Thurs. evening in May. Boy does that stink big time!!! I'd skip class but since it's only a 6-7 week class probably not the best idea. Damn!