Over the past few years, my friends have told me about different versions of Glo Runs. They’ve always sounded like a lot of fun, but the timing hasn’t worked; until this year. Even though it meant a Tri into a 5K, I was still up for it. Especially since I was doing this as a fundraiser race for Challenged Athletes Foundation.
I knew that I’d be able to recover from the Tri in time between a 4 hour ride back and the assortment of Hammer Nutrition products I had with me. I was correct on that part, and headed downtown after a brief break for a shower/food.
For those of you who don’t know, a GloRun is done in the dark with the majority of the lighting come from glow sticks, necklaces and other things like that. There are also other well lit zones at random points throughout the course. Being unable to see well in the dark because of my vision, I knew that this was going to be quite the challenge. However, I knew it would all go well, as I was surrounded by a convocation of Eagles (Jen, Martha and Julian (JuJu)).
Once it was dark, the race started and we were off. In past races, the McCormick tunnel has always been a challenge. But this night, it was just one more dark area. Having Julian to run ahead of us with a light shining backwards really helped, and we were able to keep a steady pace until about 1.5 miles in when we got to the aide station. After that point, I had the ‘foot sleep’ issue I’ve had in past 5Ks and ended up having to do a modified run/walk after that point.
Even with that, it was still a great race. And something that I’m very glad that I did. 🙂 I plan on doing it again in 2018 if the timing works out!
While this wasn’t a triathlon, I still wouldn’t have done this without the previous support from Dare2Tri. I know that may sound odd, but the reality is that because I knew from experience that things had gone well in the dark (read as 4A transition fun…), that this would as well.
