I ran in a charity 5K today – An April Run for Olivia – and found that it was very good practice for my marathon. There were 1200 people running so I got to deal with a crowded start – unlike my runs in High School. Obviously the distance was not a practice (I ran 15 miles before the race because my training called for 18 miles today), but the bib and the getting there on time were good practice. The one thing I forgot to do was look at the clock at the finish line. I honestly don’t know my time. I was hoping to finish in under 29 minutes, and I think I did based on the results of other runners I knew, but unless the results get posted online I will never know for sure.
It was fun to let the kids see me race without having to wait around for four hours while I run the marathon. The 30 minute time-frame allowed them to have fun with it and to see Daddy race. So while Savannah thought I was running for the competition (“You’ll probably win Dad”) I got to run for the distance, the time (or not), and the basic joy of getting out to run.
UPDATE 5/6/07: The race results got posted this afternoon. I finished in 26:19 – well under my goal of 29:00.