Fountain Hills, Arizona United States 65F / 18C Sunny

Total Time = 54m 55s Overall Rank = 37/753 Age Group = M40-44 Age Group Rank = 2/57

You gotta love a big league running race where the finish line is less than a mile from our home! We have been looking forward to this race for a while. It had been a number of years since it was last run and wa s awelcome addition bakc on the race calander. It's a point ot point race which starts out in McDowell Mountain Park and ends at the Fountain Park in our town of Fountain Hills. They had $15,000 in prize money for the elite field, so I knew some amazing runners would be there to race. They also had a few Team competitions with a prize of winning the heaviest member of your teams weight....in BEEER!!!!!

So about 2 months ago, I get an e-mail form a local runner in my town I had never met who was putting together a Men Masters team for the race. He had discovered me on Athlinks and wanted to know if I would run with them. I had already registered for the race so I said sure, the prospect of free beer a strong incentive. He told me the names of some of the other guys on the team and I did some research to check them out. Well, let's just say I was very much MOP among these guys in regards to running! One of the guys, Shaun, is the same dude who whopped me by over 3min at the XTERRA 15 Mile Trail race in Feb. Another guy had won the Lost Dutchman Half in 1:18 a few weeks before. It wasn't a question as to if we would win the beer, I was more concerned that I would be able to contribut one of the top four times (we had 8 guys, the four fastest times count) that would be used for our total!

I was able to pick up not only my packet, but Jamie's and my Mom's as well Friday at Sole Sports down by my office, so race morning was super chill. We planned on meeting my Mom and local friends at 7:00am at the bus pick up. They had a bunch of school busses ready to drive us out to the Pemberton Trail parking lot where the race would start. They even had a bag drop for our warm gear, which was a great additional service.

So we are on the bus heading out to the park, having fun chatting...when our bus drives right by park entrance! No one said a word. I looked at Jamie and told her move over, I needed to go have a chat with the driver. I walked down the aisle and knelt down next to the nice lady driver and said,"Hi! Say, where are you giong?" Her direction were wrong and and had her pull over and turn around, much to the relief of everyone on the bus! People were thanking me all morning before the start.

So we finally arrived and unloaded in the Pemberton parking lot. Lot's of our local friends where there and we quickly killed the hour or so before the scheduled 8:30am start. They even had a nice moment of silence in the memory of Sally Meyerhoff who had been signed up to run this race. Her sister and family were there to run in her honor. I lined up behind the elite men with my firends Eric and Matt. Eric would try and run with me for as long as he could. While standing there, another friend Wendy introduced me to this guy Scott who turned out to be on my team! He looked at me and said,"I know you! You passed me at PF Changes wt the 12 mile mark! You were the only guy to pass me all day!" I totally remembered that moment, we were all alone running down Mill. Small world and I knew he would be a fast guy over this shorter distance.