This year for the first time I ran (together with my daughter and Matt, her friend from Toledo) the “Home Run for the Homeless” 4 mile race on Thanksgiving Day.
It was a perfect running weather, cold in the morning but sunny later. Good running atmosphere. Delicious muffins in the end. A nice way to start the Thanksgiving day.
I ran with the Fuji 3d camera in my hands - This is a picture from early on. Mike George (center left) is leaving me in the dust at this point. I ran most of the race with the little girl with the green T-shirt on the left, which wrote in the back "Sorry officer, was I going too fast?" I could not get this out of my mind during the entire race!
This picture is from near the end. A couple more turns and we are done. The guy with the black shirt is Jamie Carr from our running group. He passed me in the uphill and even though I yelled at him "Hi Jamie", he did not turn around to say "Hi" because he was working hard to pass me. I tried to catch him in the final stretch but he was going too fast for me.
I thought that the course was hard overall. It was also a bit short (3.8 or 3.9 miles). I felt a bit out of shape and finished behind most of the people in my running group, but I am happy with my time (26:18). It will take a lot more effort and training to meet my time goal of 25 minutes.
One of the more interesting runners at the finish line: The leaping leprechaunm made a nice subject for our 3d stereo club competition "Motion".
We stayed for the awards and that was a bit frustrating because it became clear from the very beginning that the results were messed up. They made the mistake to announce times with the awards so every time they mentioned a time, someone would say, “Wait, I ran faster than that, how come I am not getting an award?” After a while, they stopped announcing the times but everyone had the feeling that things were not right.
My friend Mike Juppe is receiving the Master's Award. He appears to be really excited about this, plus the large Turkey that is part of the award. But, as it turns out, he was not the fastest Master runner. So, later he had to return his trophy, but he kept the Turkey because he was still in first place for his age group (first place winners get a turkey). Thanks to Mike, I got my award too! (Later, not at the award's ceremony because, thanks to Mike again, I was bumped into 3d place when my division 1st place runner got the Master's Award)
Later, next day, I checked the results in the internet and I was not listed. After a few email exchanges to straighten things out, I was listed 4th, but then changed to 3rd because they moved one of the guys ahead of me in my age group, to get the “Master’s Award”. My friend Mike went and picked up my award (he had to return his Master’s award) so in the end I am happy I got a nice mug.
The “good weather” and large “same day” registration was blamed for the errors. This is the first time in 8 years of running races that I waited to register on race day, because I was not sure I would be running this race, plus the deadline for mail-in registration was 11 days before the race (isn’t 7 days enough?) Needless to say, I will not wait until the last day again.
Anyway, we had a good time and got a nice exercise. We will do it again next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment