My good friend, Jana, competed in the Battle of Nobility Foam Fest this past Saturday, and she emailed me her awesome race story. Check out her experience! Thanks for sharing, Jana, again.
I raced today! And, it was awesome!!! I wanted to write while the event was fresh in my mind. The race was called the 5K Foam Fest and it took place at the Sandy Downs Rodeo Grounds in Idaho Falls. In all honesty, I didn't know what to expect and I was nervous! It was my first race since high school about 7 years ago. It involved obstacles such as hurdles (2 sets of about 10), 3 tire towers (1 you crawled underneath, the other two you climbed over), 6 walls you had to climb over (2 of which were about 12-15 feet tall), a 20 foot cargo net, 2 balance beams, a huge mudpit, sand dunes (consisted of about half of the race and mostly uphill!), And of course lots of FOAM!
The race I signed up for started at 10 am. You could choose when you wanted to run Friday or Saturday. Races started every hour from 9 am till 6 pm. I was on a team with my brother-in-law, Paul and a few of his cousins. There were about 40 people who raced with us. I got there 30 minutes before the race and headed to the registration booth to sign in and grab my bag of goodies. As we all stood at the starting line waiting for the race to begin, we were all confused. Where is the race route?! It was shortly thereafter explained to us that we were to follow these tiny white flags stuck in the ground. And, than they began the count-down 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 GO!!! (I started jumping up and down at the countdown because I was psyched to get going! Plus, in Cross Country they usually shot a gun in the air to get you going and that gave everyone good incentive to go!) Off we went! I stayed in the middle of the pack because I have a tendency to want to stay up front at first. I knew that if I started slow, I could find my pace much easier. As soon as we turned our first corner where the spectators could no longer see us, you would not believe the number of people who started walking! A lot of them literally ran 100 meters and stopped completely out of breath! I was so glad I didn't sprint at the start. Ok, I kept telling myself. I can totally do this! Just keep running. Just keep running! The obstacles were pretty difficult-I'm not gonna lie! The mudpit and sand dunes were pretty killer, but I had endurance! And, I was surprised by the number of people I was passing!
When I crossed the finish line I asked my husband what time it was. He said it was 10:38 am. But, he said they didn't start our race exactly at 10. So, I'm guessing I ran the 5k in about 36 or 37 minutes! Not bad for a race that went up and down sand dunes and through a gigantic mudpit for 1.5 miles of the race! But, what my husband told me next shocked me! He said he wasn't positive, but I finished in either 6th or 7th place! REALLY?! I was elated!
What an awesome experience this race was! I would do it again in a heartbeat! What pushed me to keep working those legs of mine was hearing my husband cheer me on! I'm so glad he was there to support me along with most of my in-laws. All you need to do to be a runner = Run! If you would have told me I was going to race THIS particular race a couple months ago and told me I was actually going to be proud of my accomplishment, I would have said you were crazy!
I am SOOOO doing this race next year!!!
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