Well, I'm really excited that I took part in this year's London's Run. This was the fourth annual London's Run.
"The first London’s Run was a benefit event for London’s family in 2006 made possible by the caring support of the Queen Creek residents. London Solomon was a courageous six year old girl who fought a brave and cheerful fight against an aggressive type of leukemia (AML). Her grace still inspires all of us to take advantage of each new day without fear of doing hard things and cherishing our relationships with each other." (directly from the website). This year's London's Run entry and donations went to another family who has been impacted by cancer. "Lorin Merkley, 18 was diagnosed with an unidentified form of Sarcoma in August. His treatment at Phoenix Children's Hospital was intense and aggressive. The cancer was not friendly to Lorin, but he kept a hopeful heart throughout his sufferings. The cancer continued to grow inspite of treatment and took Lorin's life in November." They had a little table set up for each of them in honor of their memories. I have never met either of them, but for some reason, seeing their tables made me tear up.
Okay... Here is the unofficial report (because I don't know my official time or rank).
The 10K race started at 8:10am (10 mins after the half marathon). I got up toward the front and when the count down hit zero, I started real strong. I passed a bunch of people and followed a bunch of young boys (really young boys). I felt really good.
After about 2K or so, I felt someone touch my back. It was Burt. We ran next to eachother for a while. I was listening to my music while running next to him, and all the sudden I hear Burt say "Are you doing okay?" I wonder if I sounded like I was dying. Burt then went ahead (He was on a mission to finish in under 50 minute, and I was on a mission to finish....) You should read he blog too. He was a total rockstar!
Okay, so at this point, I decide to push the button on my ipod/nike plus to have it tell me how far I've gone and my pace... and apparently the sensor was not having a good day because it said I had only gone .67K and I knew I was further than that because I had long passed the 1 mile sign. Such a bummer. So, from then on, I just paid attention to the time, not the pace or distance.
All along the race they had pictures and signs encouraging you to go on. I swear, I must be super emotional today, because each one made me tear up. Perhaps if I wasn't so emotional, I would have been able to shave some time off my finish. LOL. (Okay, so i've been teary eyed and emotional all morning... the cartoon Phineas and Ferb had me crying this morning... pathetic). Okay, back on topic.
At the half way-ish point, I started getting passed by a bunch of people (mostly men). I guess everyone had turned on their mo-jo. Too bad I don't keep too much mo-jo handy. I need to get some of that stuff.
Right before mile 4, they make you do a u-turn and we run passed where we had just run. Well, Burt was ahead of me, so we crossed paths. We gave eachother a big high-five. He was doing awesome! When I got to mile 4, I had run for 32 minutes. No too shabby.
At the 5 mile marker, some 80+ man passed me. So depressing. I tell ya though, when I'm his age, I hope I'm in that good of shape.
I then started passing people again (thank goodness). At 5.5-ish miles, and bunch of woman that looked like they were my age passed me. Very Very depressing...
I turned the last corner and kicked it into gear. I heard someone scream "Way to finish strong" That felt good. The last time I looked at the clock, it was under 52 minutes. My husband didn't expect me so soon, so I only got 2 pictures. The second picture shows the clock at 52:05 so until I see the official results, I'm going with that.
It took FOREVER for them to get results, which weren't actually posted... but there was an award ceremony. I'm pretty sure they weren't 100% correct with the results... Actually, I'm not ever sure they were 80% correct, but they were fun to listen to. When they got to my age group, they said "Third place... Camille..... (long space, I'm all excited), Pickasomthing rather". Dang! The girl they called for second place was super fast. I remember her passing me, and considering how tall she was, I'm pretty sure I had to take twice as many steps as she did. I then decided to wait and see if Burt metaled. Nope... not for this age division. Brandon and I decide to get going because Melanie was crazy tired. As we walk away, we hear them calling off the female for the same age division as Burt. They call the 2nd and 3rd place and then I hear "This can't be right. For 1st it's Burton McCumber. Please tell me that I prenounced your name currectly". How funny is that. I know there were some mistakes with the awards, so I'm waiting for the official times. When they post them, I'll add to my report.
Here's Burt and I after the race:
**********Updated now with "offical" results***********
They finally posted them. I'm pretty bad and have been checking every 5 or 10 minutes. I even emailed the Arizona running events company and asked them when they were going to post the results after seeing that results from a race today had been posted. Okay... according to their clock, I completed the race in 51:59 :o). I was 71/483 and 6/81 in my age group. I'm so excited! :o)
Burt was 46/483, 6/35 in his age and completed the race in 50:03. Way to go Burt! You totally rock! | 