10K Race

Today Brian & Susan ran in the Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10K Race! Keep in mind that neither one of us has ever run that far, much less in a race with 30,000 people! AND we don't even like running. But we knew there would be lots of people there and about 60 people from our church had signed up too. We started training about 8 weeks ago, then life happened - stomach bug, reports due, a trip to the ER for stitches for Joshua, etc. Needless to say, the training kind of fell by the wayside. So...when the alarm went off at 7AM this morning, AND it was raining outside, Brian considered staying at home and ran the idea past Susan. She told him not to decide based on her, but she was going. He couldn't stand the idea of her bragging that she had finished while he stayed home! So off to Richmond it was!

After a stop at Sheetz for breakfast and parallel parking in a very tight spot, we followed the sea of people and found ourselves lined in our wave to start in 10 minutes. The first mile was just a stretch to get the blood pumping. Bands were playing, people were waving and everyone was smiling. The second mile was ok. Others had started walking but not us. By the third mile, the joy had ended! We were each wondering who would actually be the first to ask to walk. Thankfully we saw a couple from church ahead of us and they were walking. Of course we HAD to stop and talk - it would have been rude not to! By now we were at the half-way mark.

The last 3.1 miles were rainy and sweaty with spurts of walking and running. We admired the old houses on Monument Avenue, listened to the all the bands posted along the route, and laughed at some of the funny costumes too. We finished in 1 hour 15 minutes. We didn't win, but are pleased to announce that we beat 81 year old Iris Vinigar of Raliegh, NC...by a mere 7 minites. (Seriously, we don't know her, but saw her name & age on the finishers list.) We're thinking about doing it again next year... that is if we can still walk tomorrow.