I had not run this race before, but Sue and her husband ran it last year. Sue's goal was just to beat her time from last year. I wrote down the mile splits for a 9:15 pace which would bring us in about 1 minute ahead of Sue's time from last year. I stuffed the piece of paper with the splits in my shorts pocket and referred to it during the race. Oh and the weather was so nice that this was my first run of the year in shorts!

Sue's husband of course left us from the very beginning while Sue and I settled into a nice comfortable pace. Our goal was to do the first mile under 10:00 and we did it in 9:37. Yay! The next two miles we picked it up some and by mile 3, we were only 3 seconds off a 9:15 pace. Yay again! The next mile had the biggest hill and we lost a little ground. The last mile was still mostly going up, but not as steeply. We did negative split mile 5 compared to mile 4. I really started feeling it that last mile. Had a little tinge of "I think I'm going to puke" feeling toward the end, but not too bad. I was "talking" (kind of) with the spectators cheering us(thank you's mostly). Then I decided if I could actually talk to people the last little bit of the race then I wasn't working hard enough. The last couple tenths of a mile were uphill and I mustered everything I had to pass an older guy in front of me. Once I passed him, I was worried I had started my push too soon, but I just kept running up the hill as hard as I could and beat him by a couple seconds. Sue was a couple seconds behind that.

Cool things. Out and back courses are fun because you get to see the front runners. The first overall female was 4th overall when we saw her. My husband was at the finish line and said she finished 3rd overall. How cool is that! It was fun passing Sue's husband and the two of them high fived as they passed. At the turnaround, the guys were blasting polka music which was a riot! Sue and I passed A LOT of people. After the first 1/2 mile or so, I don't think anyone passed us. Amazing how many people start out fast and have to walk at the end or slow WAY down. I know I'll be one of them someday because I do want to start a race at a faster pace someday as an experiment. I always seem to have too much left at the end. Still, it is very cool to be picking people off one by one.


Not a dang thing. My first 5 mile run since injuring my achilles tendon last summer.

I immediately looked around for water at the end. As soon as I got out of the chute, a nice young man (Sue's son) handed me a bottle of water. That was absolutely the highlight of the whole race!!!!!! Thank you Charlie!!!!

Walked around the square for awhile. More stretching. All they had was cookies and water after the race, but with the festival going on, there was any kind of greasy fair food that you could ever want.

I still like the suggestion that Ron adds a choice to the post race massage drop down selection that says "I wish". heehee!

Stayed for the awards and Sue's husband finished just out of the awards in his age group. 4th place though was way cool!

I am just amazed at the speedy women in our age group. I figured a 9:15 pace would put us in the middle, but instead we were almost at the very back. Only two 45-49 year old age group women finished behind us. I think that is VERY cool that there are that many 45-49 year old women out there that are running a pace of sub 8:00 or just slightly slower.

The pancake tent was overwhelmingly crowded so my husband and I drove to a Perkins restaurant and I had my pancakes there!


Middle aged, newbie, coming off an injury.


I really liked this run. The course was very pretty and the rolling hills provided a challenge that wasn't too overwhelming.