Wranglers and Ribbons: "You Can't Stop a Freight Train..."

Monday, February 6, 2012

"You Can't Stop a Freight Train..."

This was the big weekend! We left the frozen tundra of home and drove down to the valley where it was sunny and 72°F to run in our first 5K race.

The weather was G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!

Here we are with our good friends who inspired us to start jogging in the first place. Click here for the back story on how all of this running madness got started. After training in high elevation and the bitter cold all winter, it was finally time to test our resolve!

The 3.1 mile course was set against the backdrop of Papago Park. The course had two hilly spots, but the Mt. Everest on our road that we jog up every week prepared us for those tough portions of the race.

As it turned out, we didn't do half-bad for our first race! There were all types of people running, and the intimidation factor was high. Some people had aerodynamic clothes, special sunglasses, weird gadgets and devices, and crazy running shoes. The pre-race rituals were intense all around us, but we just stood there waiting for it to start. No pre-race stretching, or jumping around, or foot tapping from us mountain folk. We just watched the circus around us until they blew the air horn.

We were off to a flying start with lightning speed! You can't stop a freight train when it's coming down the tracks! Just kidding! Honestly, the race wasn't bad at all. I think we were pretty prepared for it.

My husband was the first of our group to cross the finish line with a time of 26 minutes. He placed 60th over-all and 9th in his age group.

My time was 30 minutes, and I placed in the top 30% of my age group, coming in 7th.

We finally earned our colorful Chinese Dragon T-Shirt! I'm really not a Dragon kind of girl, myself, but my husband (who has no shame) said that he doesn't care how ugly the shirt is. He earned it, and he plans on wearing it at least once!

It will go great with his Wranglers. Not. LOL!