August 4th had arrived, and it was time for the 43rd Annual Clark Lake 5k. I had been training for less than a month (about 3-ish weeks), but I had done all I could do up to that point, it was race day!
Meghan, my mom, dad and I arrived at the east end of the lake and walked down to the Beach Bar (the location of where the races were to start). At 8:30am, the 12k race started. Having a few more minutes before the 5k started, I posed with my mom for a picture, and then lined up for the race.
At roughly 8:35am, the 5k was to start. Unfortunately there was no signage anywhere of where the 5k starting point was, and I was at the complete opposite end of where I needed to be. Hurrying down the road, I had to line up in the back of the pack. On “Go”, we took off. I fumbled with my phone on my arm for a second to get the Nike Running app to start, and then I was ready to do my thing. I was familiar with the course layout, having grown up at Clark Lake, and many of the roads we ran were roads I traveled in day-to-day life either as a kid on the bus, or riding with my parents when I wasn’t old enough to drive, or simply driving myself when I could. In the first mile, I knew I was a little slow, so I picked up the pace in mile two (the Nike Running app confirmed that my second mile was in fact faster). For mile three, my pace slowed down a bit, the heat and humidity (and lack of training) had definitely started to get to me. Oh, and did I mentioned the low back pain I’ve been having for months? Yeah, that didn’t help either. Thankfully, at least when it came to the heat, some of the houses we passed had sprinklers going or people spraying their hoses for us to run through. When I completed mile three, the end was in sight, just another tenth of a mile to go. I crossed the finish line at 27 minutes and 22 seconds.
After finishing the race, I needed some time to catch my breath, so I kept walking for a few minutes. Afterward I grabbed a post race snack (apple and bagel) and viewed my chip time. As noted in the image below, my pace time was noted as 8 minutes and 50 seconds per mile, but this is a bit inaccurate. Chip time and gun time were identical, and I didn’t cross the starting line at gun time. According to my Nike Running app, my pace was 8 minutes and 38 seconds. Not a huge difference, but I’ll take what I can get!
Now that the race was over, it was time to get a new car. A new car? What does that have to do with the race you might be asking yourself….well, nothing, we had just decided we were getting new cars since we were going to be close to the dealership that I like working with.
Meghan was going to be trading in her 2005 Saturn Vue, the engine was still rocking it hard since it was a Honda motor, but her A/C had just died, and other little things were starting to go. Me, I had a 2014 Ford Fusion…the second “car” I’ve ever owned, and it most certainly will be the last. I hated it, and everything about a “car”. I’m a fan of SUV’s, and will never own another “car”. Why did I get it to begin with? At the time I was commuting from Lansing to Mt. Pleasant, and also making trips to Ohio, so I needed something that would get really good mileage. Thankfully I’m no longer commuting to either of those places now, and an SUV just makes more sense in my life. This was going to be Meghan’s first real new car, and this was going to be my 4th Ford Escape. My parents decided to come along with us, because my dad wanted to talk about a truck for himself as well.
Meghan was up first, so she began signing her life away…
We were both interested in the color blue…but we couldn’t get the same blue, that would be too weird. Meghan wanted something that closely matched her trade-in, so she ended up going with the “Lightning Blue”. While she was working on her paperwork, I walked the lot with my mom to checkout some other colors. “Cinnamon” jumped out at me, it was like a darker burnt orange, which I would have jumped on had they had one in the model I wanted…unfortunately they only had it in the top-tier model…and I didn’t need leather. Ultimately I settled on the color simply known as “Blue”…which is more of a darker denim color. Not sure why it’s not named “Denim Blue”…because when I think of “Blue”, I don’t generally think of this hue.
After signing our life away for the next 3-years (we are only leasing the vehicles, not purchasing them), it was time to get acquainted with our new rides.
We each bought some extra mileage to account for traveling and vacation, and overall, I think we were both really happy with the process (it was about as painless and smooth as could be). My dad didn’t end up with a new truck that day, but he’s planning on getting one sometimes after the new year.