Special Olympics 10k

This post goes out to Carrie!  Thanks so, so much for inviting me to do this race with your family.  I had a wonderful time and I'm already looking forward to next year. 

For the last year I've wanted to sign up for multiple races, but I was either injured or too intimidated to follow through.  Carrie sent out an email asking for support for the Special Olympics 10k early this week, and I decided enough was enough, sign me  up!  I'm so thankful that I did.  I was able to cheer on Carrie's brother, Dirk, and students from my school as they raised money for a cause their local Special Olympic teams. 

Rich had no intention of running, but as soon as we got there I could tell he was contemplating it, so with a little pressure we got him a set of numbers and he was ready to go.  Carrie warned me that she may run the first two miles and then circle back like she has done in the past, but not this year:)  She and Rich ran quite a bit and finished the race in 1:20.  I am expecting big things from these two next year after their showing today when they weren't even prepared to be running!  Way to go!

After the first mile, I decided to kick it up a notch and see what I could do.  I now know that next time I should start out a bit faster and start out closer to the front, but without ever racing or without the intent of really going all out I didn't know any better.  One positive is that I improved my time with each mile.  The slowest first mile was 9:10 and the rest were in the 8:00 range.  I ended up finishing in 51 minutes, which isn't too shabby for my first race and 6.2 miles.  I think I am even up for doing a 10 miler in the future:) 

I had a good little chunk of time after I finished to play with Carrie and Will's cutie pie, Dilyn and her cousin, Harrison.  They were chowing down while we were running. And, they didn't mind eating some more snacks, thanks to Carrie's mom,  when we all finished;)  I miss having a little toddler to take pictures of!  I forgot how cute they are when they teeter back and forth while walking, grin from ear to ear, and fight over toys:)

Official racers:)

Here come the comedians of the group:)

Dirk coming in to the finish line.

So cute, but such a horrible background of coolers!

Love this b/c I didn't even know I took a picture as I grabbed Dilyn before she took a nose dive.

I could just eat her up!  Just like she has been eating those cookies;)

Off to the races...

Future gingy....Harrison

So proud of the Henley group and Dirk!