I blogged a while ago that I am doing a few things this summer that I'm super proud of and this is one of those so forgive the "me" blog. I really hope the kiddos see these some day though.
So a few weeks after the terrible land slide that happened up here in Oso there was a benefit run to help raise proceeds for the victims and their family's. Thankfully the extended family I have that live in Oso and nearby were not affected. I decided that donating money was really one of the only way's I could help and why not participate in a run? My work running buddy and I decided to do it together.
It was pretty crazy because it was one of the smallest runs I've done but there were definitely more people there than I expected. For being put together in a couple weeks the run was very well organized and they even had a quarter for a tribute song to the victims. At the end of the song, the quartet did a double stop note for each person killed in the slide. Not going to lie, I basically had to start thinking about other things to keep it together and not start bawling.
The run itself was a really good one. It was freezing but only for the first half mile. I'd never run on gravel [which still seems odd] and there were actually quite a lot of hills that I don't think I was fully prepared to take. My friend and I had decided to run it together since we'd been training together at work. I was able to take the hills a tad better than her and ended up about a quarter mile ahead of her at one point. I'm don't consider myself a competitive person with other people but I am VERY competitive with myself. If I don't do what I consider to be my best and/or I compare to my previous runs poorly I get really disappointed. So when I decided to run back to my friend after about a mile of being separated it was a pretty big deal for me mentally. But I really wanted to finish with her and it would feel weird to do otherwise after all the hard work we'd been doing.
I can't quite give up the self competitiveness though so here are my phone results and the official results. :) It was super awesome to finish with my friend and was a very memorable run on many levels.
My phone (map my run) - Distance 6.66mi, Duration 51:24, Avg Pace 07:42, kCal 636
Arlington Runner's Club official results report:
Class - F, 10K, 30-39
Place (Class) - 5
Place (Sex) - 12
Place (Overall) - 37
Bib - 065
Chip Time - 50:32.5
Gun Time - 50:35.4