June 14th-QC Race for the Cure

Yup, Race for the Cure..again! This race I have two times a correct time and an incorrect time. And I'm not just saying this because one of the times is really good for me. Anyway, I wore my garmin and started it right at the starting line and stopped it right at the finish line. That time was 29.51! My "official" time according to my chip was 31.19. From what I understand the chip starts when the gun goes off and stops when you cross the line. That's the only way I can expalin the big time differences. We started SO far back in line it was crazy. We ran part of the beginning up on the sidewalk to get around the walkers, standers, strollers, wheelchairs, etc. Did I mention the standers/slow mo walkers? They were supposed to be at the back of the crowd and were obviously not.

Back to the beginning. I went with my friend, her two friends and one of their coworkers. I was going to ride with them, but I needed to come home sooner, so I followed them up there. We parked at wandered around a bit then got in line. It was SO crowded. Not as crowded as the Peoria Race for the Cure, but still up there. Like I said, after the gun went off we headed off onto the sidewalk to try and get around everyone. We passed one area and it smelled SO bad like garbage. Yuck, just what you want when you are huffin & puffin. It started thinning out and I lost my two friends (who were apparently right behind me the whole way, if only I had known!)

There were bands playing along the route, so that was cool. It was really good weather, I didn't really start to get REALLY hot until the 2nd mile. Then I was working up a good sweat. I was glad I wore a tank and not the race shirt.

I saw the finish line and started sprinting a little sooner than usual. It was different than usual. At other races I've been at there have been "officials" standing there and people cheering you on. I didn't see that here. There were people there waiting for others...I don't know, it was just different.

My friends had told me to meet them at the clock tower. I look around and cannot find a clock tower. So, I got my chip taken off, grabbed some food and kept looked. I asked someone and they told it was on the street, so I took off walking and it wasn't there. Then I thought maybe it was farther down on the river so I walked there and didn't see it either. So, I kept walking around feeling like a fool for not being able to find the stupid clock tower! I finally see one of them and they are all together standing at the finish line. We got some more food and then I headed home.

The results were up by the time I got home-I was 74 out of 270 for my age group (I should have been 58 according to my time), 305 out of 1889 for the women and 652 out of 2619 for everyone.

Oh, and I FINALLY got a shirt that fits! Yah!

Next race is at Railroad Days. It's at night and the boys are racing right before it-I better start training them, ha!