Fits do Race Reviews: The Esprit de She 5k 2015

Last Thursday night, I participated in the 3rd annual Esprit de She 5k at 50th/France in Edina.

I am a “founding finisher” of this race- woot woot!

You can read past race reviews here and here.  I have been running this race since its inaugural year, and I plan to keep on running it as long as I can!

There are so many reasons that I like this 5k

Location
It’s super close to my house, so I can jog to the start as a warm-up and walk home afterwards (Walking is especially key if I have a glass or two of the bubbly at the finish line!)

The goodies!
The SWAG is always really nice. The tanks are so cute. Here are pictures of previous year’s tanks:

…And here is this year’s tank!

The post-race party!
This post-race party is pretty epic. All of the stores and restaurants at 50th/France get involved with discounts and sidewalk sales. Athleta was offering 30% off of one full priced item! So you can bet I bought something with my sweaty post-race credit card…a jumper! I mean, I already have a running romper, why not a casual day romper? It’s funny that this style jumper is in style, as my mom had one exactly like it in the 70s.

Post race bubbly or wine!
All participants get two glasses of bubbly or wine.

Food!
Participants also received a chicken & kale salad from Edina Grill

All types of runners are welcome!
Open to all runners. I love how this race gets all types of runners out for some exercise,  from first timers to experienced racers.

GIRL POWER
I saw so many groups of friends running this together, as well as plenty of mother/daughter runners. There were also some pretty impressive runners who must have only been 8 or 9 years old! I love that this race gives them an opportunity to see how much fun running can be and how STRONG is beautiful.

 FUN!
It’s so much fun! There were photo booths, music, and more at the finish line area. Lots of things to do!

I participated with two girls that I used to work with. We have stayed friends now for many years, even though we don’t work together anymore. We obviously don’t see each other as much as we did when we worked together, so this event was a great opportunity to catch up. One of the girls invited her neighbor as well, who also became a new friend! (Hi Ann!)

The course:
The course runs through the neighborhoods near 50th/France. A portion of the course was actually dirt this year because the city of Edina is doing some construction. If I would have known, I might have worn my Brooks Cascadia trail shoes!

The course does include an out-and-back and it can get a little crowded with runners on both sides. It also is a very walker friendly race, so if you do plan to run, make sure you push your way up to the front of the crowd at the start.

There are some hills on this course; its nowhere near as flat as the Brian Kraft or the Torchlight. And of course the temps were hot, as the race started at 6:30. But the finish line had plenty of water and other hydration.

Post Race:
The post-race hydration included a drink called Aspire. Have you tried Aspire?  Locally ,you can find it all Life Time Fitness LifeCafes, Target, Cub Foods, Kowalski’s, Lunds & Byerlys, and SuperAmerica.

If you haven’t heard about Aspire, here’ s a little background. It’s a Minnesota based company founded by two dads who are coaches. They were frustrated because they could not find a truly healthy sports drink – so they assembled a team of experts and created one!

Unlike all other sports drinks, which contain an abundance of sugar with artificial and undesirable ingredients, Aspire Beverages are a healthy, natural sports drink containing only 8g of sugar and 35 calories per 12oz bottle without any artificial preservatives, colors or flavors.

This graphic shows you the difference between Aspire and other leading sports drinks. The biggest difference to me is the lack of high fructose corn syrup. There is still sugar in Aspire, but less of the other bad things.
This  drink comes in 5 flavors: Aspire FIRE (cherry-berry), ICE (lemon-lime), STORM (grape), RUSH (blue raspberry) and RISE (orange-citrus). Definitely check out ASPIRE- here’s a link for a coupon for you to give it a try!

My performance:

My final time was 23:14, which was not a PR,  but it was a good effort on a hot day. Like I mentioned in the Torchlight recap, I think that my Brian Kraft PR of 22:08 will stick around for quite some time. This night was more about the socialization with my girlfriends than about the race.

I was able to toe the starting line at this event. Pretty exciting…I never actually am AT the start line for a race. It was intimidating! Of course, I got passed by quite a few runners right away, but I at least held my own a bit;  I came in 39th place out of 1600 runners. Not too shabby!

All in all, a really fun and healthy evening with some girlfriends.

Fun times at the Esprit de She!