The No Worries Blog....Rebooted.: Race Day

Today was the 2009 Turkey Trot. Since running the race last year I had been very focused on performing better on the hill and improving my time. As the race day came closer my priorities changed a bit. You see both Nora and Nigel expressed interest in running in the 1/2 mile youth fun. As I am sure you can imagine I became a bit more focused and interested in the kids. I wanted to make sure they performed as well as they could and most importantly, had fun. For the most part mission accomplished on both fronts. I will start with the kiddos.

I had spent quite a bit of time coaching the kids on how best to run a longer distance than in the back yard. We talked about pace, not running too fast, or getting discouraged by other kids doing better than them. They both seemed to have a pretty good handle on the concept and were excited about the day. When we arrived we got the kids over to the starting line where they received last minute instruction on the course by the director. He gave the commands and they were off like a shot. Too fast in my opinion. Nora and Nigel got off well and seemed to be doing well. After the initial surge Nigel began to drop back a bit. Nora, bing the great big sister that she is, fell back with him. She did not want Nigel to feel bad. What a great girl. Unfortunately, from that point on it went a bit pear shaped for the Nigel. He got mad about half way through because all the other kids were beating him. Robin told Nora to run her race and leave Nigel. He ended up not wanting to finish. Nora, however, ran well. She ended up running the 1/2 mile in 3:43. She asked if that was good. In order to put it in perspective for her I told her she ran at a pace equal to the pace I run in training runs. Pretty great for my little girl! For Nigel's part, he was a bit bummed that he did not finish, but still had fun. I was very proud of both of them. My primary goal was to just have them try.

As for me, I was fairly satisfied with my performance. I know I had talked a length about placing in the race and getting the family a turkey. However, going in I knew that was not going to be a reality for me. I have trained well, but came to the realization a bit ago that shaving 3 plus minutes off last years time was just not in the cards. So, with the mind set of just running my race and having fun I set out to do my best. That takes a load off the mind. I had a nice run on a beautiful day and learned that I have little more work to do before I am a hill master. Hills are hard. I finished with a time of 28:16. That is 18 seconds slower than my last 4 mile race (no big hill climbs in that one), but 1:49 faster than I ran last year. I cannot complain about that. As an added bonus, I was under one minute off the third place finisher in my age group. There is always next year!

My focus now turns to the Jingle Bell Run on December 5th. I am running pretty strongly these days and hope to perform well. However, that is not the performance in which I am most interested. I really want to raise as much money as possible for the foundation. I am about halfway to my goal of $1000. Please visit my donation page. You know tomorrow is a my birthday, in fact many of you may be reading this on my birthday. Do you know what would be a great birthday gift? That's right, a donation to the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis.

Now for some pictures from the day. Disclaimer: They are not in order. It was late and I was really more focused on my glass of wine! Cheers.