This race was a lot of fun and the course was different. I was running with the boys while Jenny was going up ahead to shave some more time off of her PR. This was held at the Innisbrook resort in Palm Harbor. A beautiful place with 2 golf courses and several restaurants and lots of other stuff.
Before the race started we chatted with a guy that had just recently completed running at least one marathon in all 50 states - with the most recent marathon in Boston this past monday. He also had run the Estes Park Marathon in Colorado, said the altitude made it difficult. He was about 20 minutes slower than his typical marathon time which I thought didn't sound too bad at all. Wanted to talk to him some more afterward but must have just missed him.
The course started out in a parking lot, crossed over some sand to a golf cart path and then onto the golf course for a while. For flat Florida, there were a surprising number of hills. At the start of the race, Andy had run into a branch which poked him in the side, so after a quick start, Noah and I caught up to him. Noah was out in front for a while but he kept on worrying about his older brother and slowing down. Eventually, Andy caught back up. Noah was complaining about side stitches all over his body so we took a couple of breaks to try and get him going. Everyone on the course was very encouraging. Noah and I finished at 31:22, Andy had finished a little bit earlier, about 30:42 I think. I saw Jenny and asked her how she did, 23:10!!!! a new PR!! We stuck around for a bit and enjoyed some of the festivities. The only drawback was there was no free food for the runners, just some for purchase. Overall it was pretty well done for an inaugural 5K. We also were given free passes to come back and spend a day at the resort.
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