After many, many months of pestering my loved-ones to pony up their cash, it was finally time to earn my keep. At the outset, my goal was to raise a lofty $1,031.00, which was $10 for every mile I planned to run or ride during the LIVESTRONG Challenge.
The good news is I came very close to reaching my dollar-per-mile goal. I ended up with $8.94/mile! I ended with $735 raised for cancer support services, which is absolutely awesome. I'm pretty ecstatic about being a member of this team, which netted $1,725!
The bad news (which those of you who were quick with the math have already realized) is that my per-mile fundraising average was brought up by the fact that I was unable to complete a century ride on Sunday. I'll explain why later, except to mention that it was a logistical error (shared between both the way the event was run, and a communication error within our team), not a "bonk" or anything like that. We were physically able to go the whole distance (felt absolutely great, actually!), but we weren't allowed to.
Again... I'll explain in my next post. It was a bummer... but I'm choosing to focus on the positives from that weekend, rather than the one negative (and there really was only that one).
So: on to the 5K!
Cut to Saturday Morning, Oct 23.
6:00am - Alarm goes off; preset coffee does not start brewing
6:05am - Luke slogs over to coffee pot, curses at his inability to tell the difference between the AM and PM setting on coffee timer.
6:10am - First cup of coffee... Luke is now capable of speaking in full sentences.
Hillary and I had a light breakfast and COFFEE!!! while waiting for Kasey to swing by at 6:30, when we all carpooled down. Since this was our first time, we didn't know how the parking situation would be, and didn't want to be stuck somewhere super far away (since there were 2,800 people descending on downtown to run this thing and their brave supporters). But it turned out to be a breeze at 6:45am. We just parked in street parking downtown, three blocks away from the South 1st Bridge, where the run was beginning.
So we were there, ready to go around 7:00am, just waiting around for the 8:00am start. There was coffee for those of us still in need, and plenty of water, even some little breakfast treats for anyone still needing sugar.
We met up with Spencer and his loyal fans: his dad and his girlfriend Bethany. (Thanks to her we actually have pictorial documentation of this event!)
We got herded over to the starting line around twenty 'til, where we were stuck behind about 60% of the 2,800 runners. After a few congratulatory words by the announcers and the national anthem, we were off:
Did I mention there were 2,800 people? By "we were off" I meant: we sorta waited around a little until people spread out. But then, we were off!
If it's hard to tell, that's me in yellow, and Spencer is behind me to the left, and Kasey is behind him to the left again.
And then Hillary makes an appearance between the other two.It was a run/walk 5K, so there was quite a bit of weaving for the first mile or so as people sort of found their pace and grove. It was during this time that we got some words of, ahem, encouragement from the peanut gallery.
Eli Asch was gracious enough to get out of bed before 8:00 on a Saturday and fight the crowds to meet us outside of Jo's Coffee with some jibes about my waistline and sincere encouragement for the other three... he also mentioned that he'd bought me a breakfast taco to hand me on the run, but then he ate it. If you don't believe he could say all of that in the time it'd take us to run by: you clearly haven't met Eli.
The first half of the 5K was all uphill. I felt like we all ran pretty strong: at least as far as I could tell, we didn't get passed much. Mostly just passed a bunch of people.
Running up South Congress was pretty fun. Seeing all the shops and things from a running pace really gave you an appreciation for the neighborhood compared to zooming by in a car.
Around the halfway mark there was a nice little table of water cups for a quick refresher as we ran. And from there on in... all downhill. Which was... nice. Really nice.
We were greeted again by Eli (who crossed the middle of the course) for a few last words of "encouragement" (read: taunting me, encouraging others) for the last stretch. And then we hustled up to the finish line:
It's a good shot of Spencer and Kasey... Hillary and I are kinda blocked out a bit, but you can see her and my white hat.Overall, it was a really fun way to start the day. Lot's of thanks to Eli for coming out and showing his support... even if he still owes me a taco.
Thanks so much to everyone for your support. Ride details on their way.
Happy Running.
Way to go Kasey!
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