Twilight 12K - Anchorage, Alaska

Hannah at the start of the race

This race was our first competitive race of the season...My sister told me that Hannah decided she wanted to do the 12K because the boy she really enjoys running with in the Bonny Sosa series was running the 12K.  I asked Nicole how far a 12K was and she said...I don't know, like 6 miles, so I agreed to run it!  I later looked it up online and found out it was 7.4 miles!!  Oh man...Don't tell Hannah :)  Time to psych myself up for our longest run ever.

Grama, Daddy, Owen, and Hannah waiting for race start

 

Auntie and Hannah Pre-Race

Ready to run!

Hannah and I were so happy that the weather was better for the race than last year.  It was a sunny day with a slight breeze.  Hannah and I have always gotten close to the start line for all of our races because I have found that we are actually safer and less likely to get trampled.  As we were lined up at the start line, some lady made a snide comment to me about being close to the front.  I just smiled and replied "we do this all the time."  The gun went off and off we went!

And we're off!

 We took off hard and fast...maybe a little too fast.  The cool thing about this race was that we got to run in an area of Anchorage that we haven't run in before, down by the port and through Government Hill.  As we were re-entering down town Anchorage (approaching mile 3) we ran past a lady who was not feeling well.  Knowing Hannah is a sympathy barfer, I tried to get her to go by without watching.  Silly child she wouldn't take her eyes off of the lady as she passed by.  Of course, Hannah started saying "Auntie I think I am going to be sick!"  Thankfully, Hannah did not barf and we were able to change the subject.

Owen coming in for a strong finish

 We then got onto the Coastal Trail, which we run on for just about every race in Anchorage.  It was nice knowing how much farther we had to go.  Hannah was really pushing it and doing awesome.  We finished out the downtown part of the coastal trail right about mile 6 when Michael caught up to us.  Hannah learned that we still had 1.5 miles left, so the timing was perfect.  Hannah enjoyed running the last part of the race with Michael and provided the encouragement she needed to finish.  Auntie, on the other hand, was running out of steam quickly.  Just one more mile, come on, you can do it!!!  Hannah passed me with a half mile to go and finished the race right behind Michael.  I finished about 20 seconds behind her.  I can't believe the energy this child has at the end of the race, which tells me she can certainly run faster :)

Kaelyn's first time as race spectator

Justin and Kaelyn

Justin and Owen ran the 6K for this race and Owen beat his dad!  Owen finished Hannah crossed the finish line in 1:15:34.  Sadly, Skinny Raven changed their age groups and the youngest group was ages 12 and under for this year's race.  Hannah finished 8th out of 11.  The top 5 finishers were ages 11 and 12.  Even so, this was our longest race ever and Hannah did AWESOME!  I am so proud of her.  We are starting to make our weekly runs longer so that we can start chipping more time off of our finishing times.

Hannah and her running buddy

Next race up...Alaska Run for Women!  See you there  :)