Firecracker 4 Mile Race and the Fourth of July

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July holiday! Yesterday I was so busy I didn’t even have time to write my race recap!

My July Fourth holiday started in Saratoga Springs for the Firecracker 4 Mile Race. I ran this race two years ago with Chris and knew it would be fun so we both decided to run it again!

It was super hot yesterday morning, though. I only really had one goal for this race: beat my previous time of 37:59. I was pretty skeptical that I could do it since it was a lot hotter this time around and I haven’t been doing any speed training at all.

My sister also decided to run this race, too. It was her longest race yet!

The race went by pretty quickly, through the streets of Broadway in Saratoga, through some residential areas. Some people had their hoses out spraying the runners with water. It was refreshing to run through the mist!

The cruel part of this race was the huge hill at the last half mile. Cruel, I tell you, cruel. It was so hot, I had to walk a little bit because otherwise I thought I wouldn’t be able to give it my all to the finish! Had to reserve energy! I found that I had to try to slow myself down in the beginning, because I kept seeing 8:45/mile paces on my watch. I knew I had to stay under 9:30 to PR…

And then BAM, the finish line was there.

And there it is, a 15 second PR. I didn’t think I could do it, but its nice to know I can actually still set PRs…lately it hasn’t been going that well. But it did feel good!

My sister finished in 43 minutes, which was awesome. Great job, sis! 🙂

After the race Chris headed home, but my parents, sister and I decided to stick around Saratoga for a little bit. We ended up watching part of the Fourth of July parade.

Then we drove up to Lake George where we spent the remainder of the day! A few friends met us up there, it was a great time! Of course, we had to have some drinks overlooking the lake…