Saturday 16 Miles

Sixteen miles!! I still can't really believe we did it. Dane picked me up about 5:30 yesterday and we rode out to Isle of Hope. They were having a 5k at 8:20 and we wanted to get in the majority of the running before the race. Besides, the marthon at Disney begins at 6am, so I wanted to start mimicking the race day routine.

We parked at the Methodist church across from where the race would begin and set out for 7 miles out to Dutch Island and back. At around 40-degrees, it was rather cold at first, but we dressed well and after a couple of miles I had warmed up and felt pretty comfortable. The island was really pretty especially as the sun started coming on on our way back accross the causeway with the marsh on each side.

We made it back to the truck and after a quick trip to the porta-jons and then a hit of gel and water, we set out for a 4.9 mile loop around Isle of Hope (IOH). I had never realy been to IOH before but it seems like a really quaint friendly place that would be great for raising kids.

Anyway, it seems it must be a great place to raise dogs as well. We had several close calls where dogs came charging out of nowhere only to stop at the line of their invisible fence. The scariest incident was when this big irish setter came charging across his lawn and into the road, barking and growling, and not stopping at any invisible fence. Then just before he gets to us, suddenly this car passes by between us and the dog just smashed into the side of the car with a big thud. It was like God put that car there at just the right time. The dog wasn't hurt. He just seemed mad that someone had interupted his breakfast plans.

With all the dog episodes we kept up a pretty good pace. Fast enough in fact that intead of doing a little 1 mile loop after the race, we had time to get it in before. So we stopped and the truck and had another gel and water and ran the 1 mile loop which ended at the start line for the race. We stretch and jogged around for a few minutes while we waited for the start.

The race itself (St. James School 5k) went pretty well too. We finished in 27:43. It was a fun race and everyone there seemed to have a really good time. There were a lot of young kids too and it was fun to see some giving it their all at the end and others panting "I can't do this" to their friends after less than 1/2 a mile.

Oh yeah, you might have noticed that I haven't posted a link to this run from my watch on motionbased.com. Well that's because my wonderful watch died Thursday. The only button that works is the reset button which now only causes the thing to power off and then right back on. I've called Garmin and they said I'd have to mail it back to them for repairs. Bummer!! So needless to say I'll have to keep using these Gmap Pedometer maps for the next week or so until I can get the watch repaired.

So anyway, we did 16 miles total in 2:38:24 for an average pace of 9:54/mile.

I better go now.

See ya!