So much for the year of the 12k. With all of the gray skies and rain, I could not muster up the gumption to train. The good news is that neither did RR, so we walked it together. This actually turned out to be a very good thing. With over 50,000 participants, we two rookies would not have been able to (1) navigate the crazy alone or (2) find each other after the race.
I arrived in Spokane late afternoon on Saturday. After a nice visit with RR to catch up, we headed downtown to meet her friend Amy for dinner and drinks. Dinner and drink turned into participation in the Booze Day Marathon – a pub crawl where only the finishers receive tees (just like Bloomsday). As the Designated Driver I got a special package that included a Pabst Blue Ribbon tee and beer cozy. Very appropriate.
Race day was FUN. RR made me breakfast at the crack of dawn then we drove to the mall to catch the shuttle. The packet said to arrive 2 hours prior to wave time, and that was waaay to early, so we went to Starbucks for caffeine and carbo loading. Back at the race start a 9:00a, our wave began moving toward the start line at 9:15am. Close to 10a, we crossed that starting line and start to jog at the pace of a walk. Two blocks later, happy that we at least tried to run, we gave up and walked with the rest of our wave.
Basically it was a 7.5 mile, 2.5 hour party. The weather was beautiful, the participants were in a great mood, the bands were fun, and the spectators were awesome! We even ran into some of the fellas from Booze Day – partying it up on their lawn.
So we made a mental list of rookie mistakes, lessons learned, and ideas to implement for next year – I can’t wait!
Getting ready to not run!
Fox on the Run 