Thursday, November, 22, 2007

Well today was race day. My wife and I had been watching the weather reports all week and we didn’t like the looks for the day. When we got up the snow had fallen but there wasn’t that much on the ground…only about an inch stuck to the grass. Then temp was about 30 degrees but the wind was blowing strong from the NNW.

We got down to Kenosha and picked up our registration packet then went back to the car and sat there for 10 min to stay warm. Once we headed back to the starting line we realized that the wind was picking up and that the snow had started to fly again.

The race started a few minutes late but the vocalist singing the National Anthem did a fantastic job. We headed out at a good pace…around 9:12 and did a great job sticking to that pace for most of the race. All of the way out to the turn around the wind was into our face. It was hard going but my wife was a trooper. We kept the pace nice and easy.

Before the turnaround I remembered to take off my gloves before I started to overheat. As we approached to turnaround we saw all of our other runners go by. We made the turn for home and as we headed back saw our final two running group partners.

The turn home was as bad as I thought it would be…no wind and I started to overheat a bit. We kept moving and tried to keep the pace steady I saw Andy up ahead and thought that I could catch him in the last mile so I told my wife once we hit 5 miles she would be on her own but once we got there the person calling out the time said “45:40” My wife’s goal for this race was sub 58 and I had no doubt that she was going to hit that but at this point there was the potential for a sub 56!! I decided to stick with her and do what I could to push her.

We mad the final turn west and before I could ask her to step up the pace a bit she gets hit with a side stitch!! She worked trough it like a trooper and I kept the pace up beat. I tried to keep her mind off of the pain and told here to focus on catching th woman ahead of us.

By the time we hit 6 miles the stitch went away and she was able to run fast we completed the 10k (6.2 miles) in 56:47!! I am so proud of my wife for accomplishing her goal!!