K9K Race Report

The big huge exciting news? I got 2nd place in my age group!!! Before you get too excited, maybe I should tell you how many people were in my age group. You guessed it. Two. It was a very small race. Very small. Like 25 people. I won't tell you what place I got overall, but I will tell you it was in the teens :).

Ok, the real report:
The boys and I left at 6:30 am. We stopped at QT (our favorite place in the world) for gas and a snack. I had a Clif Bar with me to eat before breakfast, but didn't want to eat it until 9ish, so I got a rice krispy treat to hold me over. This turned out to be a very smart move. The boys got stuff and we were on the way. With a quick detour to McDonalds that is. Ryan's breakfast smelled nasty and we were about to barf, so we stopped, threw it in the trash and got him something else.

So we got to where the race would be, with trusty ol Garminda (yep, our gps has a name). Except, we couldn't find anything. This was my 1st clue the race would be disorganized. We finally found it and got out to pick up our stuff. When they gave me my race number, they gave me 1 safety pin. Umm, what the heck am I supposed to do with 1? I asked for more and the lady begrudgingly gave me 1 more. Ok, 4 holes, 2 safety pins. Alrighty.

9:00 came and it was time for Ryan's 1 mile run. I am in awe of him. He's awesome. He got 1st place overall! Even ahead of the adults. His time? 6 minutes 3 seconds!! Here he is finishing:

On to my race:
Like I said, only a few people, and I'm slow. That means I ran at the back of the pack. The markings weren't very good. They also didn't have anyone at the turnaround point. If someone hadn't been in front of me I would have missed it. They had a mark painted on the road and that's it. They had a few water stations, which was great, but nowhere to throw your cups. I ended up carrying mine to the next water station b/c I didn't want to throw them on the ground. It was about mile 2 when I realized I was really hungry and had no energy. Wanna know why? I forgot to eat my clif bar! Who does that? Who doesn't eat before a 5.5 mile race? Apparently me. I spent the whole race with my stomache growling. My pace during the race was really good and I'm very happy with my time. I have no pictures to show you b/c I was at the race alone. I do have a picture of my race number though:

 

Notice the 4 safety pins? I went and begged for more. They finally gave them to me. I did notice several runners with dangling numbers. Let that be a lesson to me about bringing my own pins.

After the race I downed a bottle of water college drinking game style and ate a banana really quick. Then I hopped in my car and went to get my kids, who had been picked up by my awesome friend Jessica. I went to her house to shower and have lunch then met a bunch of friends at the Tulsa Zoo. It was a great day but we were very very tired by the time we got home.

A fun picture of Adam who sometimes feels left out at these things since he doesn't run:

This week I have 3 short runs and a 14 mile run scheduled! I'm going to be tired....

~Mel