I am not sure about the rest of the United States (or world for that matter) but in Michigan you are only a weekend away from a festival. We have the Cherry Fest in Traverse City, Cheese Burger Fest in the thumb, The Pig Gig in Bay City, and a number of music fests through out the big college towns. This is just a few of all the events that go on here all year long. The cold weather in winter does not stop us from having a reason to celebrate. In Owosso, MI (where Losing It Momma spent 18 years of her life) we have the Curwood Festival. It happens the first full week in June from Thursday to Sunday. The festival is to celebrate an author by the name of James Oliver Curwood who wrote books similar to Hemingway and London. He built a small castle on the river in the little town of Owosso (and I mean SMALL! I think most houses are bigger now a days). The festival has the usual rides, fried food, beer tent and of course the people watching. I think most of the locals LOVE to see what people are trying to get away with as soon as the weather warms up. There is a parade, basketball tournaments, art show and a multi-mile race.
We all left home at 6 am to drive an hour to Losing It Grandparents house. Losing It Sib Shawn had agreed to watch the Losing It Kids (since I was paying for his entry in the Color Race in July we worked out this deal). We all arrived at 7am and unloaded everyone. Losing It Daddy and I left our car and walked the mile to the starting point because the floats start to line up on Losing It Grandparents street. I knew this would be a hassle trying to get the car back and forth. We arrived at the starting line at 8 (after a stop for some water) and got our things. For $25 entry fee we got a bag, shirt and some promotional things like pencils and chapstick. We didn't want to run with all that stuff so we went back to my parents house to drop that off and then walked back. So before the race we had logged 2.5 miles walking back and forth.
One thing I noticed was there wasn't a RFD tag on our race bibs and there wasn't s timer pad at the clock. This was an old fashion race where the person recorded your time as you came across. That is all fine and good but I go to the back as to let the actual runners go and since I start at least a minute after the first person does my time would be off. I was very happy I had my GPS to get a correct time.
The course: Well the course was not my favorite. It started out on a road that goes along the river. It is not a road used by people unless you are going to the movie theater. Even then you still have other access points so it is not used that often to gain entrance to the theater. We then ran on the dirt path near the baseball diamonds and went into the woods. This is where I was the most annoyed. The path is only large enough for 2 people at a time. They had let the 1/2 marathon people go an hour before the 5k and 10k but they were starting to loop back by the time we went. This made passing a bit difficult because if I did get up and pass I would slow down again and have people passing me again and again. Another thing I have noticed from my other Owosso race in April, Owosso runners are not polite. They don't seem to like people out there who can not run the whole race. This is very foreign to me because I have had people at the bay area races be so kind and want to chat.
Anyways, around the two mile marker I gave up running and decided to walk. I did get 15:45 on my first mile (a personal best) but it went down hill from there. According to my GPS I clocked in at 52 minutes even. I really wanted that 47 minutes but you can't win them all.
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| Curwood 5k. 52 min. 215 lbs. |
Do you have any festivals in your area? Check them out. You may have a walk/run or a bike race you could do. Earn those funnel cakes!
Go In Health,
Losing It Momma
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