Family 5K!

For the third time this year, our family is participating in Shape Up Montana. Each week with SUM, there is a new Weekly Challenge that either focuses on improving your eating habits, mental calmness or fortitude, or physical fitness. This past week, the Weekly Challenge was to participate in the SUM Virtual 5K. We were to print off our race bibs from the SUM website, and just cover the distance at some point during the week by walking, jogging, or running. Since four of our family member teammates live close to one another, we decided to do it together as if we were actually holding a 5K. My friend Stephanie decided to join us, too, so that brought the participants of our 5K up to a total of five people- me, Jeff, Tom, Carol, and Stephanie! Yay!

Group photo before the run.
Not pictured: Stephanie and Harvey.

Even though it was a casual family event, I wanted to run it as if I were racing. It's really a challenge for me to participate in races this time of year, mostly due to being busy with track season. Many races are on Saturdays but so are track meets. I do have one race potentially on my docket for late in April in Kalispell, and another late in May near Ulm, MT, but I still wanted to get a benchmark time to see where I'm at. I've been sort of maintaining fitness over the winter months, and I really wanted to just see where I'm at, so I tried to run it hard.

Our route was an out-and-back from Tom and Carol's house. Around here, roads and fields are easy gauges of distance, so we knew exactly where a mile and a half from the house was for our turnaround spot, then we just added an extra 100 meters or so at the end to make it 3.1 miles. The route was pretty flat with kind of a low-grade gradual hump in the middle of the first mile and last mile.

Even though this was just for fun, I still wanted to run hard and this "race" did have some challenges.

It was difficult to try to race with only four other participants. Part of what keeps me motivated to challenge myself in a race is picking off people ahead of me one by one and "reeling them in." That was a challenge with so few people in this event.

Another challenge was the course itself. Yes, we knew the exact distances and where we were at all times, but the fact that it was out and back and really flat meant you could see every other point of the course from just about anywhere on the course. It felt like the turnaround was never getting any closer, even though I could see it from pretty much the start line. Same thing with the finish. I felt like I had to be really mentally tough.

Lastly, the weather was extremely windy and it was also the warmest day we had so far this spring. The wind was a headwind the whole first half of the race and really tough to buck. I just kept reminding myself that I'd be flying when I turned around! I was faster in the second half, but then I noticed the heat more, which was also unpleasant. Again, mentally challenging!

Despite all of the mental challenges of this race, I still ran a time of 27:01 over 3.1 miles. For me, this is about 30 seconds off of my "new" PR. I ran a 5K in about 24:30 in college but then got away from running for several years; my PR for more recent years is 26:32. I feel really good about my time. The conditions were not great and this was the first "race" of the season for me, so to be only about 30 seconds off my PR is pretty good to me. I'll take it!

Everyone seemed to enjoy getting outside and being active, even if it was windy. Tom and Carol both walked the course and Jeff and Stephanie ran it. This was actually Stephanie's first 5K in which she ran the majority of the race. I'm glad we could make it a positive experience for her! Oh, and Harvey and Abby (dogs) participated as well. Harvey was really confused when we all ended up going at different paces. He also waited by the turnaround to make sure everyone turned around and headed back toward home. He was NOT leaving anyone behind!

Not pictured: Stephanie, Harvey, Abby.

Most of all, I just loved that this was a little event we could do together as a family. I'd love it if we can make it bigger and have more people or more of our family members present at the very least. I do have a wild hair of an idea to host a bigger 5K event out here called 5k on the Farm and have been tossing the possibility around with Jeff and the fam around here. The concept in my mind is that people would come out to our farm and participate in the 5K (and we'd also likely have a one mile fun run for kids), then people can stick around for a grilled hamburger and tour the farm. I believe that fitness and farming can go together and this is an event that can solidify that idea.

Everyone is excited about the idea, so now I just need to put my organizational hat on and see about getting it done! One of the biggest obstacles I see is simply getting people to come out to our very remote farm. We live about 30 minute's drive from the nearest (teeny tiny) town. If you heard of an event like this in your area, would you be willing to drive out and participate? If you live near here, would you want to do it? What do you think about the 5k on the Farm concept?

Lastly, as a member of Team Beef Montana, I have to share this article from Runners World on the topic of Healthy Meets for Runners. That's right- BEEF is right on top of the list as a healthy, lean protein source to help fuel your race and recovery!

Image by Dick Patrick of www.runenrsworld.com.