St. Helen 5K Race

Saturday was a busy day for me.  I woke up bright and early because me and the hubby had a 5K scheduled at a 9 am start time.  The 5K was for St. Helen's church.  When we arrived, it was a lot smaller than we expected.  We have only ran one other 5K together and that was last year.  That 5K had a lot more people, but I didn't seem to mind the small crowd for this 5K (less people that actually had to see me run!)  The other minor detail that both of us overlooked was the course.  Our first 5K was very hilly, so I was looking forward to running a flat race, but I was severely mistaken.  The course could have been one for a cross country high school race.  We started out on a trail in a forest and then ended up rounding an apple orchard and then going through the same forest again.  It was brutal and the whole time I kept thinking why did my husband sign me up for this!?  Danny is a faster racer than I am, so he was ahead of me from the beginning.  Whenever I run, I'm always in the zone, with my music and my pace that I don't pay attention to anything else.  Well, I guess after the first mile, Danny pulled his hamstring and was sitting on the sidelines and I ran right past him and didn't even notice him.  The kicker was after I finished I was so annoyed with the fact that he wasn't there to greet me at the finish line that I walked to our car and waited for him to be done with his warm downs (I had assumed).  Danny came a few minutes after and asked why I wasn't there at the finish line for him (this is why we are the same person sometimes).  I was shocked when he told me that he got hurt and that he was behind me since I hadn't seen him.  After our mixup, we just laughed about the whole situation and how we thought the exact same thing.

It was a fun morning, but it definitely was the hardest 3.1 miles I've ever run.

Danny getting ready for the race

Danny and I before the race

I was so amazed with the course, I had to take a "running" picture of it to show you.
This was the apple orchard.  Very beautiful, but not runner friendly.