Garlic Festival 10K, pancakes and a tiny parade (8/12/17)

It's now September, so of course I'd better talk about a race I ran in August. Ugh. Where has the time been going?!?

Brad was out of town on a canyoneering trip, and I was bored. Summer plans just kept falling through, and I was desperate for something fun. The weekend of August 12 offered a bunch of different race options in our area and also at the coast! Since I was home alone, I figured I might as well pick one :)

I decided on the Garlic Festival 10K in North Plains. I've seen this advertised for years with this cute little elephant garlic:

The course was a simple loop around Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course:

I'm prepping for a hilly half in October, so the elevation profile seemed like a good training run:

I arrived nice and early, parked a couple blocks away in a neighborhood, and walked to the starting line. I hit the porta-potties before the line grew and did a little warmup jog. The weather had been super hot, but, fortunately, Aug. 12 was cloudy! I can handle hot a lot easier when the sun isn't beating down on me! I even felt a couple rain drops on the run :)

I wasn't there to race, just to have a structured training run. I kept the pace comfortable, my main goal just to run the entire hill. And I did it - no problem!

Coming down the backside of the hill, I cranked up the speed a little. I always take advantage of gravity :)

With less than a mile to go, the course went gradually uphill - nothing big, but enough to tire me out in the final stretch. The photog caught me working hard:

A thumbs up, even though I was running out of steam:

Eryn came to join me for the Garlic Festival after and was waiting at the end:

There was a woman ahead of me in a purple tank top. I turned the corner and dropped it down a gear... and I took her right at the finish line :)

 

All done! Finishers got medals, socks and elephant garlic :)

 

I finished in 57:16, a 9:13 average. That's good enough for 76/207 overall, 31/123 female and 8/25 female 40-44. For a training run, I'll take it! I hadn't raced in a while, and it felt great to pin on a bib and stretch my legs a bit.

The race was put on by ORRC, which always does a great job! They offer quality races at good prices. This was well organized and well supported, and the course was great. I would definitely recommend this race.

After I cooled down, Eryn and I went to the pancake feed at the senior center. It was perfectly small-town :)

 

Ha!

Then it was time for the parade!!!!! We found a spot on the curb right outside the senior center. A few floats went past:

Then the elephant garlic man:

Handing out GARLIC!

A tractor:

And a cement mixer:

And about 5 minutes later, here came Grand Marshall Kenny:

Kenny zoomed around the street on his scooter. And then it was over. Um... we almost died laughing.

Eryn and I were sitting alone on the curb, and people kept throwing candy our way. Because no one else was around, and we didn't want the candy to rot in the street, we collected this whole pile:

After the parade, we followed the crowd to the festival and checked out the vendor booths. We really wanted to try the "world famous" garlic mashed potatoes and garlic ice cream, but we were STUFFED from the pancakes. Next year!

We both bought books at the used-book sale and then called it a day, happy with our small-town adventure :)