Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Impromptu 5K in Illinois

We were in Illinois last weekend for my cousin's wedding.  We were a bit worried about the weather because it was an outdoor wedding....in October...in Illinois.
As it turned out, the weather was perfect, and the wedding was absolutely beautiful.  It was on  a farm in the middle of nowhere, next to a small pond.  There was a large outdoor tent with chandeliers, bonfires, and dancing well into the night.

The Saturday morning the day of the wedding, we didn't have anything going on, so like any good runner I jumped on Active.com to see if there were any racing events we could partake in.  As it turned out, there was a 5K less than 5 minutes from our hotel.   Even though my foot isn't really ready to run much yet, I decided it would be a fun morning to get the whole family out there for a small 5K race.  Besides, it was for a good cause.

So that was the plan anyway.   The website said "registration at 8am, start time at 9am."   Perfect.   We arrived about 8:10 to the church where it was supposed to start, and the parking lot was empty.   "We must be early," I thought.   So, we ran down to a store to pick up a couple of things and came back around 8:40am.  Still no one there.   Instead of waiting until 9am, I decided that they must have cancelled the race and not updated the website.   But it was such a beautiful day that I still wanted to get the family out for some exercise.

So we searched and found some great walking/riding trails about 10 minutes away.   There were a grouping of about 4 or 5 parks connected with an awesome path, winding through forests, over bridges, with creeks and streams nearby.  It was really a beautiful setting.   We took our time, enjoyed the day, and walked for over an hour.   I'm guessing we went at least a 5K, if not more.  So we got our family exercise in, and it didn't even cost us an entry fee.

Here are a few pics:
Running with my son....
There were sculptures in some of the park...this is a sculpture of two bikes...

My sweetie and son....
The beautiful scenery of our trail...
here is a map of our trail..the green areas are all the parks we went through...

We stopped at a shoe store on the trip...this was an actul HUGE running shoe...
Review:

Coming shortly, I will be reviewing an item from CSN Stores.  If you haven't heard of the collection of CSN stores, they are great.  They have pretty much any type of item you would ever want to purchase, from dining sets to swing sets and everything in between.  Stay tuned.

9 comments:

Lindsay said...

Well you tried!! That wouldve been cool, too bad. I do the same thing when I travel somewhere. Hey might as well :)

Indi said...

HUge running shoe awesome!! Those trails look great and nice job on the spontaneous run!

Julie said...

What a great family day:) Great pictures...I also like the one with your son in the big shoe!

Christina said...

That sure is one giant shoe.

Sorry the 5k didn't happen but you turned it into an even better event.

TiredMamaRunning said...

What a nice trip with your family, and cool photos. Great that you got time on your feet with your son.

kizzy said...

Great pictures especially the giant shoe...

--kizzy oakley

Anonymous said...

I love the pic with the giant shoe! That's awesome

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Colleen said...

what a big shoe hahaha Seattle Real Estate