Saturday, November 24, 2007

Turkey Day Run!

When you are about to consume thousands of calories in one meal, what do you do? You go out and exercise! Go out for a morning jog to get the blood going. Sounds good right? How about your alarm clock going off of at 6 AM on Thanksgiving morning. You and your girlfriend get u; get your running gear on; stretch out a little bit ( I got in the hot tub to warm up my joints and muscles); you grab a light breakfast; and you head down the street to the local Spring Training Baseball Park to take part in the Annual 10 mile race for charity. Thats right 10 mile race on Thanksgiving morning! We weren't the only crazy ones there. There were at least 2,000 people there for the 10 mile race, 5K race and 1 mile walk. The race was raising money for the West Valley Child Crisis Center. They were also collecting toys.

A few weeks earlier, I thought Kelly was CRAZY to sign us up for the race. As the race got closer that changed and we were both excited. We're running our half marathon in about 2 months. The race started at 8 AM. We were off. Around mile four me and a few other runners almost got blown up by the group of 20 people launching bottle rockets and fire works in the park we were running in. Hmmmm, park, a couple thousand runners, wind.....hey kids lots go shoot off some rockets! The one rocket landed infront of me and a female runner, we scattered when we saw what it was, then it exploded. Crazy! Would I make it home to eat turkey?

I did the Gallway run and walk technique. Run a mile, walk for about two -minutes and repeat for the race. The course was hilly and by the time I got to the last two miles I had a lot of energy still. My knees didn't feel so good though. The finish line for the race is inside the ballpark the hosts the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres. It was cool to run in the park and having people cheering in the stands as people crossed the finish line by the third base dugout. I had a lady sprint past me coming in the park. She had a great final kick. I wanted to catch her before the finish line, but that didn't happen. I was in a full sprint and the two of us probably passed about 10-15 runners on the way in. I crossed the finish line;my trip to the men's rooms; and went back out on the course to find Kelly. I got to her with about 3/4 of a mile to go. Her foot started to bother her at the 7 mile mark, so all she wanted to do was finish the race. We we got inside of the ballpark, she was ready for the race to be over, then we saw the clock. She was 5 minutes ahead of her goal and on pace to finish under two hours! She found enough energy for a final kick and she finished under two hours!

After the race it was off to the hot tub and a bottle of Aleeve! A bottle of wine for Kelly!

We'll have offical times next week. I finished around 1 hour and 35 minutes.

1 comment:

Brian said...

Congratulations! Just remember, once you get to the 10-mile mark during your 1/2-marathon, it's only a 5K to the finish!