Living History Farms

We got to the race an hour and a half before the start - just enough time for some pre-gaming! I am horrible about taking pictures, so I am just going to steal photos from Katie and Jeff, the crayons:

A girl in my running group Kris bought hats for the event. I was planning on running like a normal person, but I couldn't resist a beer-drinking German chicken to wear on my head. It was a puppet to boot!Anyway, I warmed up with some, er, coffee, prior to the run and then a half hour before the start went to the portapotty line. Five minutes before the start, I am still in the portapotty line. I guess they didn't really plan that well for 7000 people!

So yeah, an insane amount of people run this cross country race (the largest in the country!). And I would say a good chunk of them would never consider signing up for a 7 mile road race, but apparently on a trail is okay. But really, this race is about having fun, so it's all good. The crowds never bothered me. Except for the posse of high school girls dressed as bees that would buzz.

I started out running with Kris, who runs at least a minute/mile faster than me. I knew that wasn't going to last. She dropped me at about mile 2 and I figured I would see someone else I knew, but I ended up running the whole thing alone (well with 6999 of my best friends!) but I had a good time anyways.

I am a "run through the river" kind of girl, so I plowed through all the water crossings. None of this pussyfooting around for me! I wore my marathon shoes from last year that were already shot, so this was their final swan song. Ah, purple Asic Nimbus gels, you had a good life! The first crossing wasn't so bad and a nice gentleman helped me up the muddy bank/cliff and I returned the favor and helped up the woman behind me. About the third crossing, I thought I was a pro at this and went plowing through the river, only to find it up to my thighs. No worries, that's why I wore shorts, right? About 10 m later there was another crossing and not only did I totally slide right in down the muddy bank, the river was high enough that my shorts got soaked. Now there is nothing like a nice cold river in November, let me tell ya! But that's the fun of it, right? Right?

Anyway, I mostly dried off as I ran, got my ass kicked by the big hill heading up to Mile 6, which I refused to walk (I wasn't even wearing the Garmin, but still, it was the principle of it!). The first four miles I came in at 41 minutes, but the last three took me another 39 for a total of 1:20 or so, which was pretty much what I was aiming for. Like I said before, that was miraculously in the top third of women and my age group - probably because of the large amount of non-runners who do this. Somehow I also finished this race bloody and bruised. Good times!

Afterwards, we tailgated some more:

Yay for breakfast burritos!
Note that neither of those drinks in my hand are non-alcoholic - nothing like double fisting it before noon! Also, you can clearly see where I spilled tomato juice on my shirt, and then tried to wash it off with mud covered hands. Classy! Also note that even the chicken has leaves in its feathers after the ordeal! Oh yeah, and that's Mike, who ran the thing almost twice as fast as me, in like 45 minutes. Crazy!