Flew out to Louisville to run with my good friend who is the warden of a federal prison just outside of Somerset. It was great fun to see him and his wife again. We stayed in a hotel in Louisville to avoid what would have been a three hour drive from his house. I didn't sleep much, probably because of the time change (3 hours) and just being in a hotel room. Finally fell asleep at about 130 am. The alarm went off at 6 am and I staggered out of bed and started to dress. As I was getting ready I checked my email on my phone and Dale had posted a note to me here on the board. I took it as a good omen, as I haven't been on the blog for a few weeks. Thanks Dale! The race started in front of the KFC Yum Center (no kidding, that's what it is called). Before the gun went off, they did two things that I thought were very cool: they played the star spangled banner and had an opening prayer...I'm not kidding, they had someone give a prayer over the loud speakers while two thousand runners bowed their heads, listened and said amen. At that point I knew for sure I wasn't in Oregon anymore! My race was pretty uneventful. As you can tell by my time, I wan't very well prepared. I took a number of walking breaks and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery as we wound through parks and the inner city of Louisville. All and all the whole thing was a lot of fun. I would love to go back next year and be prepared to run fast.
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