Sheri - Back from the Brink

Quick plug, I’m running the November 15 Big Sur HalfMarathon as a charity run for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.  Please consider supporting me by giving to this very worthy cause.

On to the race report…

I listen to a number of running podcasts during my runs.  I find that the miles pass by morequickly, and it’s almost like having a human running partner who runs just my pace.  Since I listen to Phedippidations, I felt duty bound to enter the World Wide Festival of Races this year on October 10-11.  This is a virtual race with runners all around the world signing up to run a half-marathon, 10K, or a5K.  

Since the Big Sur Half is in mid November, I signed up to run the 10K version of the WWFOR. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t a local 10K that made sense for that weekend.  (As it turned out, hubby go sick and wasn’t up to leaving the house that weekend anyway).  I had a 10 mile long run scheduled for Saturday the 10th, so I ran 4 miles as a warm-up, and then ran 10K for a virtual ‘North San Jose/Milpitas 10K road race’.  I got a bit of a late start, but the ‘race officials’ were willing to wait for me (the Nike+ is great that way!)  There were no frills at the start:

I like to bring my own water bottle on all my runs, but I did depend on the ‘hydration stations’ to fill up Maggie’s collapsible water dish, making this race completely ‘green’:

Here’s the second water stop:

The weather cooperated nicely, not too warm or sunny, withjust enough breeze to feel cool.  I went just about as fast as I’m able to run with Maggie, about 9:04 pace for a ‘race’time of 56:30.  She’s a short distance sprinter (think Usain Bolt, she’d beat him), but just won’t go below a 9 minute mile for very far.  She loves a cloudy day with a long run of 10 minute miles.  Just try dragging a 65 pound dog faster than she wants to go, I dare you!  It will definitely affect your overall pace.