The biggest deal in my little running world would have to be the Labor Day Road Race. The whole weekend ended up being wonderful!
I have wanted to help out with a race for a long time. I’ve been running in races for 6 years now. I know I should at least help out when I can. And for now, my schedule has me off on Friday’s. That left me with no excuse… I had the time to do it now. I ended up (dragging Chuck along too) helping out with the packet pick-up on Friday afternoon. I had a really good time and it was so nice to actually meet some of the people I had been in contact with online from Macon Tracks. Chuck was all cute about it too, he just though he was going to hang out with me till I was ready to go, but he ended up helping out too and really enjoyed it as well. We had no plans on Sunday so we offered to come by again and of course the race organizers were willing to accept the help.
One more thing about the Macon Tracks group… I’ll just have to say that I’m shy. Chuck is my personality opposite, so he brings me out some. But the people of Macon Tracks were so nice and friendly that I just immediately felt comfortable being around them. I was intimidated at first thinking I would feel like an outsider or something. It wasn’t like that AT ALL! That’s just my little neurotic self thinking though. I’m just happy that I made myself go and get over that little fear I had.
On to the BIG deal: The race! The Macon Labor Day Road Race was the first race I ran that really impressed me. I ran that race for the first time in 2004 with my Mom. It was my first 10k as well. The whole time we were running the race I remember saying to her “we have to do this race EVERY year”. It was nice that it is a big race, well organized, and the point to point is always fun. I’ve only missed the LDRR one year, due to having the flu. Plus, when I picked up my packed that year I swear my number was #666… I was NOT wearing that in a race!
This year’s race was just as great as I hoped it would be. I got my 10K PR on this course in 2007. Ok, yes that was 2 years ago. I was beginning to think it was a fluke. My goal this year was to at least match my time of 52:38, or hopefully beat it. I planned out my mile splits just like I did for this years Jim Herrin race and I wrote my goals on my arm with a Sharpie. (Hey it worked once!) My average mile pace was planned to be 8:27. I won’t go into all the tiny details of the race. I’ll just say I enjoyed the course, the weather was nice, my tummy wasn’t a mess, and I wasn’t sick. So, all was good. I ended up finishing in 52:56 (chip time), being 18 seconds short of my goal. OK, I’m not even upset now. Because at least I know my PR from 2007 wasn’t a fluke. I can really run a 10K that fast (fast to me anyway). Woo Hoo!!!! 
After the race we stuck around for the award ceremony. My Mom & my Aunt placed in their age groups. Go Them!!!!! And we said Hi to our new friends from the Macon Tracks. Monika gave me a copy of the club’s newsletter that ……………GUESS WHAT???? Featured MY Blog!!!! I was so silly and excited about that. For about 10 minutes I was all giddy like I was a Supa-Star! (Thanks Amy for picking my blog!)
We hopped on the trolley shuttle back to the start of the race. Since we parked by RunFit Sports and the store was having a celebration for Labor Day as well as their anniversary, we decided to stop by and see what was going on. To our delight, they were giving out FREE COLD MICHELOB ULTRA and hot dogs. What could be better? We sat around and talked to Steve and ate before we headed home to shower and relax for the rest of the day.
Relax is exactly what we did for the rest of the day. I went to bed at 6PM! I guess the race took a lot out of me, and it had been a long weekend.
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