On Thursday night it was off to Bristol, Rhode Island to run in the Narragansett Summer Nights 5K. Bristol is about a 55 minute drive and the race takes place on the beautiful grounds of Mt. Hope Farm.

The race kicks off at 7:30 PM and the farm area is the ideal spot for an evening road race. A nice breeze coming off the ocean helped take a bit out of the sting of the heat yesterday and the venue provides a nice, family-friendly start and finish line. The course is a moderately challenging one with some rolling hills mixed in, some part of the run being done on grass, crushed stone and other stretches on paved trails through the grounds. The heat certainly took a toll yesterday but thankfully there were two water stops on the course that came in handy. The finishing stretch is a nice, gradual uphill into the chute that definitely pushes you to get up the hill as fast as you can!

For a good duration of the race, I didn’t feel my best and had a deep pain running across my stomach. It wasn’t clear if it was muscular in nature or something else but the pain was sharp and definitely impacted my ability to run well. These things happen; you can’t run your best every day. But still, I was a bit disappointed with my running yesterday.

I finished the race with a time of 29:12, good for 9:23/miles. Certainly not my best racing of late but finishing another 5K is never anything to frown upon.

The post-race vibes are absolutely dynamite at this race. I don’t drink so the two free beer tickets weren’t for me (Pssst, Narragansett. Please come out with a non-alcoholic option) so it was more water and free pizza for me. Shoutout to Piezonis for putting out some delicious pizza that hit the spot post-run. A little live music being played as dusk was setting in; truly a perfect summer night out there!