Independence Day 10k

Happy Independence Day, y’all! I celebrated this morning like I always do; I ran in the Provo City Freedom Run 10k. This is my third year running it, and for the previous 3 years, Stadium of Fire has been on a different day than the race. The race is always on the 4^th, no matter what, but as many of you probably know, the fireworks are somewhat decided by what day of the week the 4^th is, if it’s a Sunday/Monday, the fireworks are on Saturday, that sort of thing. So this being the first year I had to deal with both events, and it made me late for the race! Usually, I drive down University Pkwy (Yes, you’ll be getting great details, deal with it) and park on 9^th East, near the Creamery on BYU Campus. But today, they had closed down many of the roads leading to the race, so we had to crazy detour, and had to park pretty far away from the race, by some sort of building, I don’t actually know which one. Then we (PJ & I, in case I hadn’t specified) were hurrying our fastest to get to the start line. When we were a block or so away, we heard the countdown of the time, and then the gun went off, and before we knew it, the racers all started running past us, a few of them teasing us and telling us we were going the wrong way. We were one of the last people to cross the start line – by several minutes.

This race is always a favorite, because it’s so easy-going. The thing I both dislike and like about it is that you run the parade route; so basically, most of the race is done in front of the people waiting for the parade to start. It sucks running in front of all of these people, but at the same time, you do get a lot of high fives from a lot of strangers that are cheering you on. Plus, Provo city has a lot of music stations randomly placed throughout the race, so you get to have mini dance parties every like, quarter mile for a few miles, its fun. I made a friend on the sidelines who danced with me as I passed them.

The race ended, and they were handing out the water bottles and medals you get for finishing. The thing I HATE about the Provo race is that they don’t really give you any water. Usually, if they do, it’s in a tiny cup, and its hose water. I don’t mind hose water, necessarily, but for some reason, Provo’s hose water tastes gross gross gross. So this year, we had to use the new water bottles we were given to drink our water from. We had to stand in a long line to get our water, and then, they gave me exactly 5 pumps of water, which filled up about a quarter of my bottle. When I looked at the guy, all he said was “Sorry, we’re rationing.” Seriously? I just ran 6.2 miles in the July morning sun, and I get about 3 gulps of water? Awesome. Then I was like, I should put on my medal, it’s time to celebrate my run. I pulled the medal out of the wrapping and…it broke. The medal was broken! I went back to the medal hander-outers, and asked for a replacement. She informed me that they were out. GAH are you kidding me, Provo?! So at this point, I gave up, and we walked back to the car, to go get our own water.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good race. I enjoyed the run, naturally, but the after-events really made me hate it. I almost want to write a survey or something to send back to the race directors, so that my opinion is known, but I doubt they’d even care. I’ve included some pics we took of the race – the first is the ‘before’ picture, when we haven’t run, and we’re still good, and then, the after, back at my house, after we’re sad about the medal, the water, and the general tiredness of running. I can’t wait for next year now!