AE513: Second to last race of the season!

Today Karl and I ran yet another 5K race, this one taking place at his old stomping grounds - Brown County High School. The race started at Noon and it was an absolutely gorgeous day: temperature of 65 degrees, sunny, and very little wind. It was certainly not a "normal" mid-November Indiana day!

Karl ran an awesome race, placing fourth overall and getting a new PR of 19:02, which is an overall pace of 6:07 per mile. Whew!! I ended up getting first overall for the females, and I believe I was 9th overall in the race. I ran a familiar time...22:16, which I just seem to be stuck on! It's a 7:10 per mile pace, and I'm starting to get a little frustrated that I can't seem to go faster, but my goal is to develop an actual training plan for next season so that I'm doing consistent speed workouts, and hopefully that will help my times improve in 2010.

One of the coolest things from the race today was that it was an out-and-back, meaning that once you hit the halfway point you turned around and ran back the way you came. This allowed me to see the leaders of the race, as well as all of the people who were running behind me and hadn't reached the halfway point yet. I'm definitely not used to being at the front of the pack, and it was so nice, yet also so weird, to hear nearly every person I ran past saying things like, "You're the number one woman, keep it up!" and "Way to go, number one female!" and "Great job!" The reason I say it's weird is because I don't feel like I'm good enough to really deserve those cheers! The running community is extremely supportive of one another, though, and that's one of the reason I have enjoyed running these races so much. Karl took some pictures of me at the finish, so here you go:

Trying to kick it in to the finish line.

I'm thinking, "Ahhh I'm tired!"

In case you didn't know, I started running all of these races in August because they're a part of a race series called the Magnificent 7 Series. The series includes a total of 28 races that take place in seven different south-central Indiana counties from the months of March - December. There is no minimum number of races required to be a participant in the series, and so far I've run in 10 of the races. At every race participants have a chance to earn "Mag 7 points" based on their

place. Points are awarded to the top three overall male and female runners, as well as the top three in each age group. I slowly worked my way up to first in my age group, and according to my calculations I'm now in second place overall for all of the females in the series. At the first race next spring (in March, I believe), they give out the awards to the top three overall males and females, as well as the first place winners in each age group. Personally, I think the "series" aspect is great because it motivates me to get up and run on those mornings when I would really just like to sleep in. It also creates a sense of "community" at the races, because we end up seeing the same people over and over, race after race, and we've met a lot of really nice people through it. Karl was a spectator at the first two races I ran, and after that he decided to start running them as well. I'm really glad he did because he's now in second place in his age group in the Mag 7 standings!

We have one final race left for this season, and it takes place in the Brown County State Park on December 5. This one is an 8K run, which I'm really looking forward to since it will be a little bit of a different distance! 8K is equivalent to 4.97 miles. I'm hoping to run somewhere between 37 and 38 minutes for that, so I'll be sure to post my results once it's over. Most of the races in the Mag 7 Series are 5K, although there are a few 10Ks as well. This is the only one that's an 8K so that should be fun.

For now, here are a few more photos from the past few days:

On Friday one of my former students, Joey (far left), came back to guest speak in my Sport Sales class. He brought his boss, Blake (next to me), as well as one of their clients, NFL player for the Indianapolis Colts, Tyjuan Hagler. You can imagine my students' surprise when an NFL player showed up for class!