Blazing New Trails: Goldy's Run

I thought that running in a real race merited a post...finally. I've been seriously lacking in the posting and working out areas of my life lately. Since I haven't been working out much, I also haven't posted much. I've been pretty busy in the evenings and I'm not really into running in the morning. I'm not a morning person, though I did have to get up at 6:30 today (A SATURDAY!) in order to make it to the race on time. In the end we finished with a time of 28:21. Not great but after 2 weeks of not running, I'll take it!

The weather was a little cold and windy but it was fairly comfortable to run in. This is what we looked like to start:

Notice my Run to Stop MS gear? Oh and if you're wondering, that's my friend Joe. He's also running the marathon, though not for the MS Society. Erich and Joe's twin brother, Mike, were spectators/photographers.

The starting line was a mad house. There were over 2000 people registered between the 10-mile and 5K race. We had a really slow start so if we'd been able to start at a normal pace, we probably would have had a time that was at least 30 seconds faster. Here's what that looked like:

The race wound the the University of Minnesota campus. I have no pictures of that. Erich took a picture of us just after crossing the finish line on the 50-yard line of TCF Bank Stadium. We were on the jumbotron and that's what this picture is of:

You can see Joe in blue. My right arm and my hat are to Joe's left and almost off the screen. Their camera wasn't set up in the best way. People tend to cross the finish line, then just stop, creating a mad traffic jam. The guy in the front looks super gassed.

Here's what the finish line looked like:

See the mad mess I'm talking about? We finished the race with some snacks. Bananas and my favorite, Salted Nut Rolls! This is what we looked like at the end. Joe looks pretty much the same but I always get super red-faced anytime I exercise.