What a great way to spend a Saturday. My friend Jackie and I ran the Route 66 Quarter Marathon together this morning. It was her first race, so she had to get used to the minutiae: packet pick-up, timing chip, bib, starting line procedures, pacing, water stops, etc., etc., etc.
It’s funny: When I run by myself, I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just run. But running with Jackie, in this role as the informal coach/trainer/whatever, I felt responsible for her. I wanted her first race to be as good an experience as possible. So I thought about what we were doing, and I put together what ended up being one of the easiest and most pleasant runs I’ve ever had. We jogged very slowly. We took frequent walk breaks. We pushed past walk breaks I didn’t think we needed. We attacked the steepest hill in the race — an overpass about half a mile from the finish line — just to make sure we weren’t intimidated by hills. We even had enough energy at the end to finish with a good kick. It was great.
The only disappointment of the day was the lack of finishers’ medals at the end. We’ll get ours eventually, but they’ll have to be mailed, and I’d really been hoping Jackie would get to collect her medal at the finish line.
Oh, well. It was still a great run. We’ll ratchet up the mileage a little bit next week and see how it goes.
After the race, Ron and I cruised Route 66 to Clinton for dinner at White Dog Hill, with a stop at the Okie Twist-Off at the 66 Bowl in OKC, where we ran into an old friend from Texas.
Hope your Saturday was as nice as mine.
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 