Race Recap: 4th of July Spokane Indians 5K Pennant Run

It is always a fun race when Mr. Healthy Diva agrees to participate without me having to twist his arm. I know that he doesn’t like running as much as me, but I like it when he does participate.  I think that he was excited to run this race just because he loves baseball and he would get to finish on the field. It also might have helped that our neighbor, Sean, was running it too. I was excited about the race because I figured it would be a great way to kick off the holiday weekend. Had to earn my BBQ, right? I don't think Mr. Healthy Diva was thrilled to get up early on the 4th, but he made it out of bed in time- probably only because Sean started texting him. 

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I got up early enough to run an easy 1.25 miles on my TM and do some stretching before we left. My goal for the day was to try and get in some extra mileage to better prepare myself for my two upcoming relays.

When we arrived at Avista Stadium where the Spokane Indians play, the line was pretty long for pre registered participants to check in. What should have taken us only a couple of minutes took closer to 15 minutes. Once we finally got our bibs and t-shirts (the shirts were awesome) I headed out to get in some additional miles. I got in another 2.51 miles that still left me plenty of time to stretch out. The race website advertised the starting time at 10:00 am, but that was just for the kid’s fun run. The 5k didn’t start until 10:30. I ended up sitting around longer than I would have liked. 

Before the race started they gave an overview of the course which would be 3 full laps through the fair and expo grounds, finishing on the baseball field. I thought it was cool that we would get to run through the expo grounds, but 3 laps? That just sounded daunting!

Even though the course was 3 laps, I LOVED it! Just when you started to get too hot, the course looped through a couple of barns. The shade was welcomed and on each lap I looked forward to it. On one side of the stadium there was a radio station playing music and in one of the barns there was a band playing. I am not used to having bands/music for a 5K, but I thought that it was great and made for a fun race atmosphere.

On my 3^rd lap I was getting hot and feeling pretty fatigued. I knew that there was no way I would catch Heidi who was in first place, but I still wanted to finish strong. As soon as I got onto the outfield to round into the finish I was surprised at how big it was. It seemed like there was still a long way to run before I could finish! I looked up and saw two females finishing and thought “what the heck?!” There was nobody in between me and Heidi so I immediately thought “cheaters!” When I crossed the finish line Heidi was already talking to them because she knew that they didn’t run the full course. They tried to play it off like it was nothing and then they admitted that they only ran two laps of the course. Don’t play dumb with me girlfriends. They finally asked the lady at the finish line to pull their bib numbers, but she said it wouldn’t matter because the only award given was to the overall male and female. Um, it kind of does matter. At least it mattered to me.

Loved having the chance to wear my "USA" ProCompression socks!

The t-shirt is a really nice tech shirt. I got a small and it runs big, but I am sure I will wear it often.

Garmin stats:

3.14 miles in 22:04

2^nd OA Female/1^st AG

What they could improve upon:

Earlier start time- even 9 am would be nice.

More people assisting at the check in tables. There were only two people and one list for pre registered participants. There were an additional 3-4 people assisting with race day registration and they weren’t busy. At least one of them could have helped out with pre registered check ins.

Better information on the event website about race the race day schedule.

Need to have a better way of keeping track of laps around the course.

What I loved about this race:

Great technical t-shirts

Tickets to the game/fireworks that night (we didn’t end up going).

Fun course (loved running through the barns).

Music two places on the course so you got hear music 6 different times.

Awesome finish line on the Spokane Indian’s baseball field.

Ice cold bottled water at the finish line.

Tons of post race snacks.

Really friendly volunteers and Spokane Indians employees.

My overall thoughts on this race were that it was awesome. One of my favorite 5K races to date. Already looking forward to running it again next year!

--Tasha