When we did the Frosty’s Race in December we saw a little flier for an upcoming run that was in support of the Arizona Veteran Program Association scholarship fund. Being it was to be held at Scottsdale Reach 11 Park, has a dirt track, supported a great cause, and was fairly close meant of course we had to do it. So another early rise Sunday morning it was.
The Reach 11 Horse Lovers Park really is a great place to run. Like all races here the run starts out on a little paved loop then heads you out in the dirt. Today the trail had much less water and mud spots to avoid versus the Frosty’s run. Plus it was a little warmer for the start – but still chilly pre-race. Overall a nice sunny day though and great morning for a run.
It was pretty cool to see a bunch of current military guys there for the run, including a couple older gents that were obviously veterans. In fact jumping forward for a second I think having the military youngin’s there helped push me as over the last couple hundred yards of the race I was neck and neck sprinting with a Marine.
So a fairly typical 5K race, well ran but the local Arizona Running Events folks again, but with one big exception. Kimberly and I of course got the Garmin watches for each other for Christmas that show distance ran among other things. So it was with much surprise that when we came up to the 1 mile marker on the trail and I looked at my watch, it showed like 1.3 miles. This then seemed to be the case the rest of the race. When my watch showed we hit the 5K (3.1 Miles) we were still well out on the trail with another looked like mile to go! This may not seem like too big an issue as we of course run longer, but your body tends to pick a speed based on distance. And at 3.1 Miles my body said ‘hey we gave you the 3.1 mile speed and there is not much more there old man’. So needless to say, the last bit to the finish line was a little more ‘heart beats’ than normal.
At the finish line everyone was talking about the distance being longer than a 5K. I figured when they did the awards and such that they would tell us it was longer because the military always “goes the extra mile for us” so we did the same or something like that. Well, not really, seems it was really nothing more than a boo-boo on the distance marking that morning. The total distance ended up being 3.95 Miles so over 6K even.
The best news about the race is I finally got my first 1st place showing in my group (Kimberly already had one from another). Kimberly placed 2nd too. After the event there was a nice raffle, some good food and a chance to say hello to some of the troops. Hard to beat starting a Sunday morning like this….
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