Legs for Life 5K + 20 miles for kicks

Over the past week, I was reminded of a local 5K to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I knew I had a 20 mile long run on my schedule for the weekend, so I was toying with the idea of skipping it.

Eh, I couldn't in good conscience skip it... so I planned to run it on Saturday and do my 20 mile run on Sunday. Let me just say I HATE running on Sunday, so this race had a lot to live up to.

The last race I went to in this town, using this course, was very poorly run and only had ~35-40 runners. In fact, the last time I signed up, it was cancelled at the very last possible moment. The Legs for Life race had a different race director, and a different cause, so I decided to go ahead and give them another chance...

They did great! The run was well organized and had probably over 200 runners. For this town, that is HUGE! There were a lot of the regular runners from the area, and of course Barbie and Angie were there... I ran the entire race with Angie, and finished in 29:24 - good enough for 3rd place in my age group, believe it or not!

I threw on the sweatshirt after I ran. I didn't run in that thing! It was warm when we were running, but I was freezing afterwards and glad I had an old sweatshirt laying around in my back seat.

Barbie won 1st in her age group, and Angie won 2nd in hers. So, we were all winners! :-)

For some reason, this race WORE ME OUT! I slept like a log all night, and didn't get out to run until 10am Sunday morning. Yes, I'm a heathen, no church for me yesterday...

Angie came down and ran the first 11 miles with me. I decided to run out and back for the first 11 on a route that I normally won't do by myself (it runs past the Interstate on-ramp). Yeah, that was a big mistake! Those were the hilliest 11 miles that I have run in a LONG time.

About 4 miles into the run, I HAD to go. So, Angie stood watch and I trotted out to the woods. After I was done, and pulling up my shorts, I found that I was too close to a vine with thorns in it, and they got pulled up in my shorts. Ouch! Got that straightened out and we went on.

About 7 miles in, this guy started following us:

Clearly, I don't know how to make a dog stop following. I could NOT get him to go home. About 8 miles in, I was shuffling my feet, and hit a pothole just right and went down. Yup, scraped my knee. Luckily, that was all. I wasn't hurt for real. In all the years I've been running, I have NEVER fallen down. And, now, I have to have THAT happen when somebody else is with me. UGH!

After we finished the first 11 miles, I was tempted, very very tempted, to call it quits and not finish the 20 miles. Then, I started thinking... I have told everybody that I was going to be running my last long run. People are going to be asking me about this. I can not wimp out! So, I stopped in the house for a potty break and grabbed a bottle of water to carry. By this time, the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds and it was starting to get hot. All right, just get out there and finish it! So, off we went (me and my friend the black Lab). He followed me for the entire 9 mile loop! Grrr... Much as I tried to tell him to go home, he was enjoying the beautiful day, chasing squirrels and running through random creeks and ponds. I would like to forget everything else about those last 9 miles. Luckily, they were uneventful- no falls, no thorns, no dog fights.

When I got home, I had my daughter give my friend a dish of cold water and went inside to change. I was going to come back out and try to take him back home where he first started following, but he had left. I'll bet he slept well last night! I sure did.