Sunday, May 3, 2009

Race Day

Yesterday we got up at 5:30AM and were out the door by 5:45. Our destination: Carmichael, for the American River Parkway Half-Marathon. I ran it last year with Bren and had a great race. I got second place in my age group with a time of 1:47:53.


I knew I wanted to beat my time, and placing in the race would be a bonus. I told Peter, "I don't want to start out too fast and run out of energy at the end." Well...I did start out too fast; my first mile was 7:21 and my second mile was 7:30, by mile 4 I had slowed to an 8 min. mile and I just tried to hang on. By mile 8 I realized that I would most likely beat my time and this motivated me to keep my pace. I ended up with a time of 1:40:27, seven mins and twenty-six seconds faster than last year which put me in 3rd place for my age group. Yay! So, even though I was cold, wet, tired, and sore, I was happy. Did I mention it was raining for more than half the race?


The best part of the day however, was going to Knights Landing and having a Cole Taco Dinner as only Carolyn and Ron can make. Evan happened to be on his way home from Happy Camp and was able to stop by, and Bren and Neil came up for dinner and to visit. These aren't the best pictures but they're the only ones I have. Peter has been so good about supporting me in my running. When I told him how early we'd have to get up he said, "Just wake me up and I'll drive you there."

Next year these two need to run the race with me.


Lauryn did pretty well considering she only had a 20-min nap. I couldn't get her to smile for the camera though.



2 comments:

Nikki said...

Karen, you are awsome! I love that you say you want people to run with you, I think you'll have to slow down a bit for that to happen! It sounds like it was a great race! Way to go!

Lindsay said...

Way to go, Karen! You are a running super star! 7+ minutes faster seems pretty amazing to me. How many tacos did you end up eating? You probably burned off about 100 tacos!