Summer of 5Ks

so this summer i decided to sign up for my first ever 5k. and then i wound up doing three of them. my last one was last night. (it was also my niece's third birthday) it was the first annual glow run in kansas city. it was really crowed and it was a blast. about 5,000+ people signed up for it, which i think was more than they were anticipating. i went with a friend from church, her sister, and met some of her friends from work.

before the race they had a face painting area. the line for it was ridiculous. but i got a pink bow on my arm for my nieces birthday. my friend and her sister got stars on their arms (i didn't get a picture of all our arms)

then it was just time to wait in a giant glob of people and wait for it to start. it was cool to see some of the costumes some teams had. (we didn't dress up for this one) a few teams had tutu's (a really common theme i've noticed) some had fairy wings. one had white shirts that had highlighter yellow type on the back that said "will run for beer". those ones made me giggle. one guy had a giant mouse head with a huge bright light on it. i'm not sure if he actually ran with it on, but it was crazy cool. besides that it was mostly people in their normal running garb, with glow sticks all over. (i had quite a few necklaces on) 

so the race was scheduled to start at 9, but it wasn't quite dark enough yet, so we waited an extra 15 minutes. no big deal. because of the huge amount of people, we had to do waves with about 500 people in each wave. i didn't start untill about 25 minutes into it, and a good chunk of people had finished by the time i had even started (crazy i know) but once i got going it was pretty good. it was another hot and humid night in kansas city with no breeze, so it was hard to run for me. again, i wound up walking most of it. i had started to feel kind of light headed and by the end i felt like i was going to pass out. but i stuck with it and finished it safely, so i'm okay with that. 

it was a fun time, and i was super happy to see my mom close to the finish line. (she wasn't able to make it to my first two runs) i think i may have scared her though when i said i didn't feel good after. this was the first time i had actually gotten anything for running. they gave us medals for it, and good golly it is actually pretty heaving. my brother and i were joking that you could sling shot it and knock someone out. 

i had a good time. and i will do some more 5k's next summer. but i think i'm done for the summer, and will train better for next year. hopefully then i can run the whole time, and not feel like i'm going to pass out at the end of it haha. hope ya'll had a great weekend!