A Qualifying Time
Once again this year, I ran our local Butte-to-Butte 10k on July 4th. I decided my goal for this year was going to be to finish in under an hour. Last year was so, so hot – I wondered if I should carry a water bottle rather than depend on the water stations which can get congested and cause delays. BN offered to wait along the course with a bottle for me, so that worked out well. He didn’t register for the race but ran on a nearby trail and then the last couple of miles after giving me the water. I could see him getting gradually further ahead of me. There’s usually a guy at each mile marker calling out the elapsed time, and mine were hovering at the 10-minute mile mark – 21, 29, 39… the 5th mile didn’t have anyone. But I knew I would be cutting it close if I indeed made it in under an hour. BN popped out from the sideline near the 6 mile marker and urged me to speed up, I still had a chance! Aaaagh! I put on a burst of speed and caught sight of the finish clock in the middle distance. 59:33… 34… 35… ! Another burst of speed and I staggered across the finish line gasping, oh-my-god-oh-my-god! (There are videos of 5-minute increments of the finishes here but my browser won’t let me see it so I don’t know if I show up or whether I look like a complete idiot. You’ll have to check it out and let me know! I’m wearing a green tank top, black shorts and my white-and-green “track town USA” bandana for good luck (from the olympic trials, left behind on a bleacher near us)
While I was trying to get some breaths of air and waiting for the timing chip to be cut from my shoe (hi-tech this year!) a guy next to me leaned over and vomited. Gross! I looked away and edged to the side. I took some more gasping breaths. I looked to the left again just in time to see the vomiting guy hurl again. Great. I finished level with the vomiting guy. At least I wasn’t the one barfing.
My official time was 59:54! Yay! As they would say at the Trials, that’s a PR for me!
KT – tried to see you in the starting runners – holy cow there are a lot of runners and maybe if I could put it in slow motion, but I cannot figure their system out, so it could take some time to find you. Congratulations on a job well done!!!!!
Sound’s like fun Katie. But… TMI!
Wow good job!
Hey, congratulations!
Way to go – under 60 minutes! I looked at the time segment from 55 to 60 minutes, but did not see you. One problem is that they “edited out” people’s faces (by blurring or fuzzing them out) – its like they did not want you to recognize people – weird. Anyway, I will look again and see – there were a number of green tank tops….what was your number?
Someday, I should run it too…
My number was 4422. That’s so weird that they blurred the faces. I thought the whole point of having the videos on that site was so you could find your self and friends. Oh, well, now I’m not so bummed that my browser was acting up and not letting me see them.
I did see the highlight video and that was fun, with the theme song “I love Eugene!”
Dad, maybe next summer you guys could come visit us for the 4th and run the 10k and set of fireworks. 🙂