Leprechaun 10K

I participated in the Lady of the Lourdes Catholic School 10K this St. Patrick's Day with my friends at work. It's a fun race that starts on the East side of the Capital Building, going up City Creek for 3 miles and then continuing down the next 3 miles ending in Memory Grove. Everyone dresses in green and St. Patrick's Day costumes. My Co-worker Pat Noteboom's sons go to that school and he's been volunteering to be in charge of the race for the past three years now so we not only participated by running in the race but we helped with the T-Shirts and getting the runner's packages together. We really do it to support Pat's family rather than the school itself but as Pat says it's good to put in some volunteer time with the Catholic Church just in case God turns out to be Catholic. I love his attitude about different faith's, to him we're all children of God, no matter what we believe . . . and I agree.

This is my friend Rebekah (she thought she was funny and closed her eyes), her little girl Teagan walked the one mile health walk with Rebekah and our friend Melissa. It took them an hour as Teagan explored the trail, picking flowers and petting the dogs there at the event with the other runners.

This is our friend Melissa, she dressed up as a Leprechaun Yetty. Head to toe in this homemade yarn suit that took her two months to crochet. She won the Best Costume Award!!!

My goal was to finish the 6.2 miles in an hour and a half, but as I started going up City Creek I found it difficult to jog at all up the .5% incline to the half way point. It took me an hour to do those first 3 miles and as I saw all the other runners start back down I thought for sure I was deadlast. This bothered me a little until I changed my attitude and started being proud of my placement. It wasn't until I started back down the canyon that I realized that I was actually in 2nd to last place, another girl was treking her way up too. The way down these last 3 miles was easier as I found I could jog again down the hill. It only took me half an hour to run those miles and I crossed the finish line at one hour and 31 min. My friends Melissa, Rebekah, Teagan and Pat were there to cheer me to the finish. Not bad for my first time running outside, in the cold weather, and with inclines this season. Besides like my friends say it is better to finish dead last than not finishing at all, and it is better to not finish at all than to not start in the first place. The point is that I'm still having fun exercising and getting more fit for the upcoming half marathon I'm running this July 31st in San Francisco. Wish me luck!