We dragged ourselves off a plane from LA on Saturday morning after a few long days. The idea of waking up Sunday and racing a 10k trail race with elevation wasn’t too appealing. So, I set about looking for something a little easier for this weekend. And, as luck would have it, I found the Firefly 5k starting Saturday night at 7:30pm.

Novelty races are supposed to be fun for the kids. In this case, the gimmick is flashing lights and neon glow sticks, and a start and finish in the mighty San Jose State Spartans football stadium. The video looks good from the website:

In reality, it was a pretty lame experience. We started at 7:45pm: still bright daylight and sunglasses weather. We ran on pavement (what Australians call asphault) for 3.1 miles or 5ks, and finished in the sunshine in the stadium. So much for the lights and neon glow.

The race itself was 1.6 miles out and 1.6 miles back with a little “dogleg” to make it a little more depressing. Hot, hard, flat, and roads. Maybe I just needed to lighten up a bit (pun intended) — and walk or something. Anyway, I thought it was lame. Net result, Selina was I think the 3rd woman over the line and I was top 10, but it wasn’t designed to be a competitive race. The time was somewhere in the low 23s.

Anyway, that’s race #24 in the books, and another weekend to plan. I’m still about 5 races behind plan, but that just means 5 weekends with two races any time in the next 5 months. That feels ok. The trick is to stay healthy and not to miss any more weekends.