When someone shouted “GO!,” I’m not sure the small town of Orcas, Washington, knew what hit it as we made our way through the crowd of 186 runners pushing a flag-waving 18-month-old in a stroller and blasting “Born In the USA” by Bruce Springsteen at full volume from a portable speaker. With a sparkly red skirt flapping in the breeze and a patriotic pair of running shoes pounding the pavement, we were quite the sight to behold.

I have never been very good at running races “for fun,” but when it’s the Fourth of July, you’re a million miles from home on vacation and it’s your first time running with your entire family with a stroller in a race, you embrace every second of it. And that I did during the Funhouse Fourth of July 5K during our recent trip to Washington state.

With a 9 a.m. start on a bluebird day, we lined up at the back of the small crowd adorned in {mostly} red, white and blue in downtown Eastsound. As the race began, we started weaving in and out of the moving bodies as our personal DJ (Mr. rUnladylike) turned the quiet patter of feet into a patriotic soundtrack. We turned a corner and immediately started up an incline. Luckily for me, Mr. rUnladylike was pushing the stroller for the first half of the race. The first mile was beautiful as we ran along the waterfront.

We hit our first mile in 8:52.

From there, we turned onto a single-track trail. Yes, I said trail. When I contacted the race earlier that week asking if strollers were permitted, they cheerily said yes without mentioning that a third of the race was not on the road. Mr. rUnladylike maneuvered our Thule Urban Glide (Amazon affiliate link) skillfully through the winding path and over many roots and other obstacles. We pulled to the side several times to let runners behind us pass so we didn’t hold them up with the stroller. It was really fun to whiz through the shaded, gorgeous running path, and we earned our badge for first stroller trail run.

Our second mile on the trail and pausing for runners to pass was 10:00.

As we came back onto the road, I took over stroller duty.

We ran on a sidewalk for a while and then back onto the road, enjoying a nice downhill section. We picked up the pace as the finish was nearing. Our final mile was 7:40 and the last little bit was around 6:00/mile pace. We finished 49th and 50th with big smiles on our faces.

Our final time was 27:23.

We celebrated by driving up to the top of Mount Constitution after the race. (Get it, “Constitution” on the Fourth of July?!?).

It was the perfect way to honor our nation’s independence.

I’ll spare you the details of the later toddler melt-down, settling for terrible take-out pizza instead of our previous dinner plans and going to bed before seeing the fireworks. *wink*

Did you celebrate the Fourth of July with a run? What do you think about holiday-themed races? If you’ve ever been to Orcas Island in Washington, tell us what you think about it.