Team 5K in 50 States

Team 5K in 50 States: Hannah and Auntie Jennie

Running Buddies: Auntie Shauna, Owen (brother), Dad (Justin), and Uncle Greg.

Cheerleaders: Mom (Nicole), Grandma, Grandpa, Ava (AKA Suzy-Q, cousin), Baby Kaelyn (cousin), Grammy Farr, and Grandpa Tom.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Iron Girl 5K - Scottsdale, Arizona

After taking a nearly 5 week running break we are excited to be back running again.  We totally enjoyed our time off (2 whole glorious weeks in Jamaica and a very blessed Thanksgiving) but we really had to work to get back into race shape.

This trip proved to be quite the adventure...on our way down, I found my cell phone in my purse to be covered in water.  I couldn't contact Hannah's mom until we got to the car rental place in Arizona. (A HUGE thank you to the nice car rental counter guy who let me use his personal cell phone!)  On our way back, we almost lost Hannah's car seat to the Portland Airport because of the airlines mistake and then we arrived home to Alaska to awful roads and cold houses as the power had been out for over 4 hours.  In bed at 2am Monday morning and Hannah was thankful to find out that school was cancelled on Monday.  Fortunately, we had an awesome time at the race!
Hannah and her first cactus!

Arizona proved was much cooler than we expected and I was actually afraid we were going to be cold given our short sleeves and capris we brought to run in!  We were thankful for the 9am start so we didn't have to get up really early.  The temperature was about 58 degrees when we got to the race.  We warmed up and stretched while we were waiting in the start chute.  Since I have been running slightly slower than Hannah as I have progressed in my pregnancy, I gave Hannah a heads up about the turn around at the half way point so she didn't continue on the 10K course.  At 9am, we were off!

Hannah was keeping a pretty good pace and chit-chatted with a couple ladies as she ran as she usually does  :)  Since this was an Iron Girl race, all racers were women.  As we neared the turn around, I was watching to see Hannah go around the corner so I could cheer her on.  I was watching and watching and she didn't go by.  I realized OH MAN...SHE'S ON THE 10K COURSE!!  There was no way I was going to be able to catch up with her.  I gave the race volunteers a description of her clothes and waited minute, then kept going for the finish.  About 2 minutes later I hear from behind me...AUNTIE...I looked behind me and breathed a huge sigh of relief!  She told me that she asked someone if she was still on the 5K course.  When they said 10K, she turned around and headed back to the turn around.  Good thing I told her about the turn around! I was super proud of her...she is getting to be quite the good little racer.
Post-Race
I told Hannah she needed to push it to the finish and she took off.  I crossed the finish line about a minute behind Hannah and found her waiting for me at the finish just like she was supposed to :)  Hannah finished in 28:29 which was good enough for 1st place in her age group!  We got awesome medals for this race and Hannah received an Iron Girl necklace charm.  This will be our last out of state race until I have my baby (due April 4th), but we will still be running in town until then.  I found my self impatiently awaiting the local running calendar so we can begin planning our spring and summer races!

Awards Ceremony

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