Drumstick Dash!

I'm falling behind on blogging again but am totally ok with it - I've been out living the stories instead of just writing about them. But this blog and you wonderful people who read it are a lifeline I cannot afford to lose - honestly! So while the photos are sitting on a different computer, I figured I'd go ahead and update on the Drumstick Dash...the 4.5 mile run I participated in on Thanksgiving morning.

Simply amazing.

The energy was overwhelming - it was around 37 degrees outside, but thankfully the rain held off until we finished. It was completely unlike the 5K we did a few short weeks ago (of which there were maybe 225 participants?) -- there were over TEN THOUSAND participants in this event, blaring music, ample food (free coffee from Starbucks, soup & noodles from Noodles & Company), great registration gifts (a long sleeve technical t-shirt), and all going to a good cause (Wheeler Mission - helping the homeless).

Myself, hubby, my brother & sister (and my brother's friend who showed up at the last minute!) all took part. Of that small group, I finished 3rd (my brother's friend is a triathlete and my brother....he's just awesome like that & can pull a quick run out of nowhere). Hubby ran the WHOLE thing and improved his time by probably 2 min / mile (stunning!) and my sister, who just started training maybe two weeks ago, put in an AWESOME time for her first event (under 12 minute mile!).

I don't know whether to be excited or bummed about my time -- I finished with an average 10:44 / mile. That is slower than my 5K (which was 10:38 / mile). However, this is a longer race AND - the big kicker that I've seen posted by SEVERAL other participants - there were FAR too many people for the small roads and FAR too many people who chose not to pay attention to the appropriate line-up procedure.

Basically, runners line up in a group by your expected time / mile. That way, faster runners who do 6 min miles will start at the front and (in theory) not have to trample over slower runners. We appropriately stood in the 10 minute /mile group. However, we spent easily the first 2 miles weaving in and out of slower runners, walkers, stroller-pushers, and even groups of folks who took up the entire road. I was running up on curbs & even jumped over a cone at one point in order to not get slowed. I feel like that motivated me, in part (i.e. I sprinted many times to get ahead of a slower group). However, I'm sure it significantly slowed me down...we all joked at the end that we probably ran 5.5 miles instead of 4.5 by all of the weaving we had to do.
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Regardless, I am SO proud of all of us. My family has never really been the active type...and now we are talking about making this a yearly tradition. Let me tell you, we didn't feel guilty about putting a few extra things on our plate after that!

As far as training goes, with two race events behind me and cold weather rolling in I will probably start focusing more on weight training and time in the pool. I do hope to do at least one more race (at least to keep myself motivated) before next spring. I feel like I could have done better on the time and want to keep myself in shape to do so.

I have SO SO much more to share and will post photos as soon as I can get ahold of them.

I hope everyone else had a beautiful Thanksgiving as well and is enjoying (hopefully) a few extra days off-schedule!