China Grove Main Street Challenge 5K

Will Run for Pizza and Donuts!

The China Grove 5K is one of my favorite 5K races!

  • It's in my town, just down the street!
  • It has a fun post-race spread of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Pizza Hut pizza and fresh watermelon!
  • The atmosphere is fun and family friendly!
  • It's at 9pm at night which I think is pretty fun!
  • Flat course! This means people come from far and wide to set PRs and it's very competitive!
Photo by Aaron Cress - Facebook The China Grove 5K Main St. Challenge 
This was my first race since my diagnosis of iron deficient anemic which had really affected my running - in fact, that's what prompted me to go to the doctor! My running got so bad that I couldn't even run half a mile at a ten-minute pace! I've now been taking prescription iron supplements for about two and a half months and have seen much improvement, however, I'm still not at my all time fastest, so I was very apprehensive about this race!

Thankfully, my age group is very small so I had a fighting chance. The weather was fantastic - about 70 degrees! I had some freeze dried fruit, an energy drink and endless amounts of anxious adrenaline to fuel my run. I started at the front of the crowd but many people passed me in the beginning as they always do. I particularly had my eye on one girl because I thought she may be in my age group and she looked like a runner! I gave it my all and about halfway through, I was cruising past a lot of people who didn't properly pace themselves (including my competition). I began sprinting when I felt the end was near but that was a little too soon! The cheers of the crowd actually really encouraged me! I couldn't slow down that close to the Finish line! 

I was SO EXCITED for a pace of 7:07 - my fastest by far since my issues with iron. My finish time was 22:05 and I was first in my age group. I love bettering myself and there's just some sort of adrenaline rush I get from running in 5ks and it's something my mom and I enjoy doing together!

Have you ever run a 5K? Would you run for pizza or doughnuts?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not Your Mother's Cookie Dough - Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Bean Free!

Image
You've seen edible cookie dough recipes all over the World Wide Web. You've some cookie dough with garbanzo beans, cookie dough with flour, dough with sugar, without sugar, maybe even with sweet potato. But, have you ever seen cookie dough with... Cauliflower. That's right, folks. I said cauliflower. And then I said "folks" which is weird. The idea popped into my head as I was thinking about the versatility of cauliflower! It's used as rice, as a mock mashed potato, as pizza crust, even added into smoothies! So what can't this vegetable do!? This recipe is SO SIMPLE, you have to try it! Not Your Mother's Cookie Dough Makes 2 generous servings. Ingredients: 210 g cauliflower, steamed then cooled 1/4 cup powdered peanut butter 1/2 tsp imitation butter flavor 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/4 tsp salt 2 tbsp almond milk sweetener to taste (I used approximately 1/4 - 1/2 cup erythritol)  2 tbsp mini chocolate chips (I used KNOW foo...
Read more

Gut Healthy Gummy Bears! Keto Friendly

Image
Team Sour or Team Sweet? I'm team sour all the way! These gummies are surprisingly easy to make if you have a gummy bear mold (they're very inexpensive on amazon!) and they have the gut-health benefits of prebiotic fiber and gelatin! First they're sour, then they're sweet. Ingredients: 40g VitaFiber IMO syrup  1 tbsp gelatin liquid stevia to taste (I used orange stevia) 1/2 cup water Directions: Heat the mixture on the stove until bubbling.  Use the dropper to fill the gummy bear molds.  Place in fridge until set.  Just before eating, toss the gummy bears in a mixture of citric acid powder, and granulated sweetener of choice (I used a monk fruit/erythritol blend).  Voila! Sour gummies! 
Read more

Keto Meringues! Sugar Free!

Image
I recently had the idea to make Meringue cookies and my curiosity was piqued at the idea of making sugar free meringue cookies. I wondered if it would work!  3 calories a piece?! I'll take 10!  I took to Google, and to my surprise there were recipes with Splenda, erythritol, stevia and beyond! I decided to try my hand at sugar free meringues with an erythritol based sweetener I just purchased recently. The brand is Swerve and I purchased it from Luckyvitamin.com. It claims to have no aftertaste! Meringues can be a bit tricky to set up due to humidity and given that it was a hot August day in North Carolina, I think they turned out pretty well! The texture was good on most of them but a few of them were still a bit soft in the middle.  Factors working against me: I didn't have enough egg whites I didn't have cream of tartar I was attempting sugar free I didn't have parchment paper Humidity You may be thinking, why even bother? Well, I don...
Read more