Yet another unofficial run

I got back into running mode this week and it didn't look pretty. Tuesday was a good four mile neighborhood run but it was all downhill from there. Hill day found me walking up the last few yards of the second Knox hill, Friday's beauty shop run was my slowest ever and today I ran a race in Wake County at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic school and barely finish under 32:00. I actually was doing well the first two miles, 19:15 at the end of mile two, but I just couldn't keep going for that last mile. I confess, I walked for a minute during the last mile.

For a relatively small race, maybe 250 runners, I must say that this was one of the best organized races I've been in so far. They had three water spots, volunteers strategically placed along the route, timers at mile one and mile two and even though it was an open course very few issues with cars. This was also the very first race that started with a prayer, "The Prayer of St. Francis" which is one of my favorites.

I did have to scold a woman standing behind me at the starting line who made a crack along the lines that it was a "good thing we weren't running in Durham and dodging bullets." With humor, I let her know I lived in downtown Durham and took exception to that comment! She then admitted that her daughter was at the NC School of Math and Science and when the Durham police came to give a talk to the students he told them that Durham didn't have a crime problem any worse than the other triangle cities, we are just willing to talk about it. Amen! What is it with runners in the Triangle? This is the second race in this area where I've overheard derogatory comments about Durham.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to try for 5 miles in my plan to work up to 10 miles. I know already the heat is going to get me as it was definitely a problem today and today I was able to get started at 8:00am. Tomorrow I won't be able to hit the streets until 9. Hopefully I'll have good runs next week so I don't embarrass myself in front of my "coach" in North Dakota.