Today I took my family to the Red Hot Pick Chicks (RHPC) race. We made it a family event. Connor, Jed, and Jaxine all wanted to run the 5k. I pushed Evan and Eliza in the a double stroller and ran with Jed and Jaxine. Connor ran ahead of us. The course is an out and back on the Provo River parkway trail. At about .75 mile Jaxine wanted to walk. We only walked for a little bit because Jed really wanted to run. By 1.5 miles Jaxine was about done and walked again. Jed didn't want to stop and ran on ahead. At 1.8 miles, Jed was about 50 yards ahead of us and Jaxine was getting slower. I didn't want Jed to get lost, so I put Jaxine in the stroller with the other two and ran fast to catch up to Jed. He was a trooper and ran the whole rest of the way. We turned the second to last corner and saw Connor coming back towards us. He had gotten lost. We ran together towards the park. As we got close to the park I made Jaxine get out and finish the race. Connor and Jed finished about a minute ahead of us, and we came in at 38 minutes. I turned around and started the half marathon. I was currently in last place with the nearest runner at least 3 miles ahead. I was doing about 9 to 9:30 minutes miles. I started calculating things in my head and figured I could catch the tail end of the runners by mile 7. The canyon was nice today. A bit windy going up, but the weather was good. I saw Lily coming back down and gave her a high five. She was five or six miles ahead of me and I knew I had no chance of catching her. After her I passed several of the other pink ladies making there way down, and a few guys. At the waterfall I passed RAD coming down and she told me that here goal was to stay ahead of me. She was currently over two miles ahead of me, but I took the challenge and tried to catch her. Just before the turned around, I saw Jon and Kelli. They were the tail end of the race. I just had to catch them and I wouldn't be in last. About a half mile later I had caught up with them. I chatted with them a bit, then headed on. My downhill pace was between 8 and 8:30, with several of the miles right on 8:15. I was able to maintain that pace through the to the end. I never did catch RAD. I finished with a total time of 2:34:38. Which gave me a time of 1:56:38 for the half. After the race I ate some delicious goodies and visited with a few of the runners. This is a fun race with lot's of fun people. | 