Where do I even begin with this race? What a great morning! First off let me start by saying, I had the great pleasure of running into
Mindy Przeor, the race director, at a Jr. High city cross country meet, and what a sweet sweet lady! I could feel her excitement for this race while talking with her, that benefited the Mesa Public Schools after school running programs, which just made me more excited for it. If you visit
www.run3rd.com you can read about how this all started! The idea/concept/movement of Run3rd is Sean Astin's.
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| Flat Runner! Mikey (Sean Astin) will be at the race, surely Goonies was necessary. |
This race was easy for me. It was close, I knew exactly how to get there (being directionally challenged, I was definitely excited about this), I could park at Red Mountain High School track
parking lot, which had more than enough room, and walked down onto the
track where the race was set to start.
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| Table full of medals! Don't those look GREAT! |
I walked through the small crowd searching for friends and familiar faces. I noticed a big crowd close to the start line and assumed it was the crowd around Sean, but didn't want to interrupt or push my way through. I wanted a picture with him, but I wasn't going to stress it too much. I located friends easily. First Laura, next Emily! I didn't know she was racing! On my way out to the car for a quick drop off of stuff I ran into Helly, Corine, Kristin and Jeremy! Awesome! I knew there were others coming I was hoping to meet, but I hadn't found them yet.
Emily and I stood around chatting for a bit and then I noticed that Sean was close to where we were, picking up his bib number. After just a smidgen of prodding from Emily I went over and waited for a chance to snap a picture with him. I was so excited!! It was the only opportunity I had as the day went on, so I'm super glad I took advantage of it.
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| Star Struck!! I wanted to tell him all about Jaylee, but there just wasn't time! |
It was time for the race to start! We all lined up.. runners, walkers, speedsters, strollers and children. This is the only part I was kinda worried about. I've seen some other kids dash runs and there are ALWAYS kids who end up tripping and falling and getting trampled at the very beginning of the race because they're right up at the front. I heard a kid or two got hurt, but it sounds like it wasn't too bad. I hope that was the case! We heard some words from the Mayor and then from Sean, and then we were off!
I had planned to go very slow. My hip had been bothering me the whole week and I had pain in my calf as well. The course started out by looping around clockwise on the track and then down along the high school and elementary school campus. About halfway through the first mile I looked down at the garmin and realized, I WAS NOT going slow!! In fact, I was going so fast! A 9:00 mile for me, right now, is very fast. But my hip didn't hurt at all, so I just decided to go with it. Just a little before mile 1 I ran into another friend, Olivia! I've been following her on instagram for a while and was excited to finally meet her in person. Her pace was matching mine so we stuck together! How stinking fun is that!
A little into mile 2 I was struggling to breathe so I walked for just a few seconds trying to get a couple deep breaths in and then I caught back up to Olivia. Just as we were about coming to the end of the third mile we also caught up to my friend Laura. That girl was cruisin'!! That last part was so funny. We're running and cheering for other runners and repeating Mikey's line from "Goonies" when they're down in the bottom of the well. I was laughing so hard! That does not help breathing, but it was so much fun! I finished that race with Olivia. I've never finished a race with a friend before, it was so so fun! I felt her reach for my hand as we were crossing the line, but I wasn't paying attention, hahaha! I bet those finish line pictures are gonna look so funky :P. I can't wait to see them!
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| Laura!! She PR'd! Way to go Laura! She Runs 4 Annelise |
Running the race with a friend is so much more different than running it alone. Sure I had just "met" Olivia, but I felt like I knew her from social media. Our world is so plugged in these days, and there's worry about people not connecting like before, but there's so much benefit from it also, and yesterday I reaped those benefits 10 fold. We cheered each other on and urged each other to push hard, even when we were tired. We finished that race strong and together. Man am I grateful for her. We both ran a sub 30!!
After the race I located all my
Run Eat Tweet AZ peeps and we got a couple of group shots. Boy do I love these runners. They have become good friends and I love having people I can talk running to and they just get it instantly.
Later, as everything was wrapping up I even managed to get an autograph on the ribbon of the medal!
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| Thank you Sean and Mindy! (Thanks Kristin for the picture!!) |
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| The back of the medal, and Sean's autograph! Can't wait to send this to Jaylee! |
This race was so well organized! Mindy and Kris did such a great job. There was a water station close to the halfway point, plenty of snacks before and after the race, the course was a touch long (according to my garmin), but I'd rather long than short anyway. The volunteers were amazing as well! Anyone who is willing to give up some early hours of their Saturday morning to come hand out water and stand at turns to direct runners and cheer for us should get some mad props!! The little kids both running and volunteering were so stinking cute! I loved seeing them out there (even though I did almost plow one over who cut right in front of me and then stopped suddenly! YIKES!!)
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| Lego Jaylee goes on every run with me! |
I'm hoping that this race becomes an annual thing. I really had an amazing time promoting it and running it. I would run it every year if it's an option! Thank you Sean Astin for your
Run3rd concept. Thank you for sharing it with all of us! Thank you Mindy for having an idea of creating a race for it and seeing it through. It always means so much to me to run for a bigger purpose. Thank you to all the sponsors! Thank you
Bert Jones Photography for donating your time and talent and providing FREE pictures! Thank you volunteers for the time you donated to help before during and after the race! It was an amazing day!
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