I talked the whole family into doing the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot. The plan was for Sara and I to wog and for Mom, Dad, and Cabe to walk. Unfortunately, Mom's knee started acting up so she couldn't join us. But she was will us in spirit. We registered as a team, so Sara and I decided we needed a uniform. We thought orange would be unique. Not so much. Sara was very clever and added our team name to the back. (I would post a pic, but I can't find the cord for my camera.)
We got a bit of a late start, so here we are approaching the start.
After we walked over the starting pad, Sara and I took off on our wog, leaving the men in our dust. We both forgot to wear watches so we had base our intervals on exhaustion and landmarks. I would huff and puff to Sara, "ok . . . we . . . will stop . . . at the next . . . intersection." Meanwhile, we were dodging walkers and people with strollers. I know we started in the back and that the race is self seating but there were some really slow people in the way. And, I was surprised that people didn't leave room on the left for the faster people. *sigh* Okay, enough of that. We kept with our running/walking plan. Sara and I made it to the turn around an Mission street and meet up with Cabe and Dad around Jackson Street. There they go!
At about mile 2, my legs were getting pretty tired and I was slowing down. I think there were people walking faster than I was "running." The race route went off the road and on to the Guadalupe River Trail. This was the worst part of the race. The 5K people were supposed to stay in one of the lanes and the 10k runners in the other. It was very narrow. We couldn't run because the 10Kers were too fast and the 5K lane was jam packed with walkers and strollers. Part of the trail goes under the railroad trestle. Many of the 10K people were running off the paved trail and at least two people hit their heads on the trestle. (ouch!)
We finally made it off the trail and were ready to run, when I heard "Melissa!" from behind me. And, there was Molly and the fluffy dogs cheering us on. We stopped to say and "hi" and then in true "helper" form she told us, "keep going!" (or, something like that) My legs were still pretty tired and I was basically running one block and walking one block. The route went by the old Stockton Warehouse :-P. We were getting towards the end. I ran the block on Stockton from Julian to Santa Clara. Then, we walked until we got to Autumn. We were at the final push. Sara and I ran from Autumn to the finish line, it hurt, but we made it! Sara's time: 52:27, My time: 53:00. Not bad for my first "running" event.
No, pic of Sara and finishing. But this is when were creeping towards the start.
And, here come the men! They finished in 1:01:51.
It was a great morning and I was very proud of all of us! A great way to start a wonderful Turkey Day.
2 comments:
You guys did great! When you didn't see us at the turn (I thought the dogs would be noticable) I wanted to say hi but didn't want to slow you down or detract from your finish time so of course I told you to keep going! :)
Next race will have to be less crowded and we'll seed ourselves better. I'm thinking about signing up for the 10K Mermaid, but I don't know if that's too ambitious.
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