Taste of Louisville 5k - June 7, 2014

On June 14, I ran the Taste of Louisville 5k with my kiddos.  Last year, I ran this with my daughter, and she did great.  I looked at the calendar this year, and I didn't have any races going on, so we decided to do it again.  My 8-year-old son has recently decided this was something he would want to do, too, so I signed up the three of us.  We were all supposed to do the Home Run for the Homeless 5k back in May, but it was snowing and miserable, so we didn't end up doing that.  We decided this would make up for it.

Due to the massive flooding in the Boulder area last September, the route changed quite a bit.  The couldn't even do the half-marathon this year.  They ended up doing a 12k instead.  And the 5k route was completely different from last year.  It started right in downtown Louisville, running past people setting up their tents for the Taste of Louisville going on that day, and then headed around the outskirts of the town on some trails in their open space system.  It was actually very nice.  A beautiful area, and some beautiful homes along the route.

Because my 9-year-old daughter had run this distance before, and was used to doing this type of event, I decided she could just go ahead and run her own race while I ran with my son.  This was his first time running this far, and I knew it would be slow going.  And my daughter is very comfortable on her own, so I told her to do her best and she could just wait for us at the finish.

Everything went perfectly.  My daughter took off right at the start, and we didn't see her again.  My son and I jogged along at the back of the group.  We slowed down to walk once in a while, but never actually stopped.  He was pretty beat by the end, but we made a big push for the finish, where my daughter was there cheering us on.  It was a lot of fun.

Here's the photo of my son and I crossing the finish.  I'm too cheap to actually pay for the picture, which is why it's covered in watermarks.

Not sure if we're going to be doing any more of these running events this year.  They are really expensive, especially when you get a bunch of us going.  I'm more than happy to run around the neighborhood for free, though.