Passion For Life 2013

Jings, another damn cold run, this time with the whole family, I was going to be running the 5 mile with Gordon and everyone else, ie Bren, Liam, Iona, Chris & Emma were signed up for the 5k. The run is organised by the head of the track program at Gordon's high school, Walled Lake Central, so the were going to be a lot of  Gordon's friends running, I wasn't anticipating seeing very much of him.

I got up bright and early to get own and pick up the seven race packets before the crowds arrived, turned out to be one of my very few good decisions of the day. I then went home, distributed the shirts, pinned on the numbers, passed out the bagels that I got on the way home, as I am super awesome, and generally got everyone moving. As we live about ten minutes from the starting line I wasn't too concerned about getting there on time, which ended up being a little too optimistic on my part.:-)

What with trying to get Chris & Emma from their dad, Liam trying to find his friend and the general bedlam around the place, the start of the race ended up being fairly stressful. not exactly as intended. I had planned on trying to get a picture of the family together at the start, but that quickly went away as Gordon went to hang out with his cross country team buddies, Liam with his friends and generally, we all split up. The race start was pandemonium, as usual, and I managed to find Gordon within the first five minutes or so, but we were keeping a fast pace and I knew I wasn't going to be able to sustain it. H stuck with me, when he & I both knew he could do better, but stick with his old dad, he did.

On the whole the race went well for, I managed to come second in my age group, which got me a letter and prizes; a free $38 haircut and some other sundry nonsense.

Results compared to last year;

	2012	2013
David	40:48	41:50
Bren		1:03:56
Gordon	53:40	40:35
Liam	46:21	42:37
Iona	45:54	42:38
Chris		1:03:44
Emma		52:15

Me, close to the end, struggling

Gordon finishing strong

Liam & Iona finishing together

Bren & Donna, Commerce Cougars,
crossing the line together

2013 Shamrock 'n' Roll Run

Here's to a quick one. Damn cold morning, Bren's first race. Bren was starting exactly one hour after me but I was hoping to make it back in time for her start. Due to current injuries and lack of training, this wasn't at all certain.

The morning was damn cold, well below freezing, which is really quite bizarre as last year it was in the low 70s at the start, but this is Michigan and the climate is a bloody disaster, and so we move on.  After the usual Kona stuff we got on with it. At one point, ~mile 5, one runner asked if I was carrying an injury as I seemed to be favoring my left foot, and he was right, the pain in my ankle was building and my form was starting to get affected, I just wanted to be done. Crossed the line faster than I hoped for, got the usual snacks and a very impressive medal (they never disappoint). All in all a fun morning, but damn cold.

I have to give a huge shout out here to Kona Running, every race they organize is better than the last. This time, instead of just trying to encourage slower racers to start at the back, they were actually having two different starts, the second 10 minutes after the first in both the 5k & 10k races. Obviously this still doesn't stop eveyone, but it certainly helped.

The bibs also have a QR code that enabled you to get your results after the race, just by scanning it with your handy dandy cell phone app

Finish time of 52:12, 27th out of 100 in my age group and 340th out of 1,818 overall, glad I got it done and legs weren't sore for too many days after.