River Trail Classic recap

Okay so it's been awhile but now the holidays are over and I can get back to my blog.  I thought I would do my first race re-cap blog.  On the Saturday after Thanksgiving I ran the FOLEPI River Trail Classic in my hometown of East Peoria, IL.  This is a four mile (downhill) race on a paved trail starting at one end of town and ending at the park district building.  It so happened that the start of the race was practically in my parents backyard.  In fact when I was a kid I used to bike, walk and rollerblade on this trail.  I never ran on it because I didn't start running until this year.  The way it was set up is people would park at the finish line and take a bus to the start.  I on the other hand parked at my parents house and walked over to the start and had my husband pick me up at the finish line.  Originally my parents were going to pick us both up at the finish but my husband was nursing an injury and decided to sit this one out.  So he my mom and I headed over to the gear check area which was in my old grade school which is now a church building.  I wanted to look around and find my old classrooms but it was crowded and they started having people go to the start right after we got in the building.  We walked over to the start where we saw a friend of my husbands and a friend of my mom's.  I recognized some faces from previous races and my gym but no one I knew well.  This was going to be my first solo race.  In my 2 previous 5k's and one 10k I had run with either my husband or a friend. Eventhough my husband usually passes me up after the first mile or two.  Did I mention this was my first cold weather race. I ended up wearing leggings, long sleeve shirt, workout pants over the leggings, pullover and my cool new tiara headband.  Now the start of the race was a little confusing it just seemed that people started running, no gun or start line.  So I turned on the nike plus and away I went.  It was so funny being on a trail I haven't been on in years but seemed like it hadn't been that long.  I remember as a kid not noticing that the trail went downhill because it's such a gradual slope, unless you were riding your bike back up the hill.  I had set a goal of doing the race in 45 minutes which would have been an average pace of 11:15 a mile.  After the first mile nike plus told me my pace was 10:53, WHAT!  Okay I can do this I crossed the finish line at 43:51 according to the offical race time.  My husband was waiting for me and took some pictures.  I have to say I am proud of my race pictures but hate how I look.  Anyway we went inside where there was Avanti's pizza and gondolas, yum.  I have to say this race had the best food and got my first race hoodie instead of t-shirt.  I will certainly do this race again and hopefully husband will be able to join me.