ONE MINUTE!!!

Well, I beat my record by one minute. I ran it in 1:56 this time. Last time I'd been 4th place in my age division, but this time I moved back to 7th place. They had a lot of people enter, and I heard the 1st place girl in my age division saying that this was the first time she had run this race. There were about 300 runners (or maybe it was 300 total, including walkers -- I'm not sure, I just overheard someone saying that).

I stayed with James, a.k.a. Benedict Arnold, for the first two miles. When we reached the 2nd mile I said, "you know, this is faster than we usually run it." He said, "I know," and off he went. He ditched me. I followed him for awhile before finally giving up on catching up to him. Good thing I tried to keep up with him, though, because otherwise I might not have beat my time. Once I decided to just run my own race, I pretty much kept my same pace the rest of the race. I didn't stop at all. At the water stations I would grab a water and take a sip while I ran, then throw the rest of the cup all over me to cool me down, and drop the cup on the street (litter bug!). Once I got to the half-way point, I knew I was home-free because the 2nd half of the race is easier than the first half. When I got to the 8th mile, I wondered how I would do on the rest since we only run 8 miles in the mornings. I was on auto-pilot by then, though, so I was fine.

James finished at 1:45. During the last mile I was speeding up a little and passing a couple girls that I'd spent the whole race passing & being passed by. I did finish before they did, and I thought I was pretty cool, until my brother-in-law Chris zoomed past me, and came in a couple people before I did, finishing at 1:55. I finished at 1:56. Kris came in a minute after me at 1:57, and Therese at 1:58. Caleb came in somewhere between me and Laura, and Laura was at 2:02. I think we all did totally awesome. Laura waited around for a half hour for her friend Amy to finish. Therese waited for Gabby to finish walking. Kris was home and showered and riding her bike to the parade by the time Laura and I walked home.

I'm really glad I ran it, but I'm not sure I can ever run it again because I was seriously running as fast as I could the whole time. I'm not sure I could beat my time again. Maybe if I spent all year training...

We already scared Laura away. They're on their way back to Evanston now, skipping the last part of her class reunion. We are pretty good at scaring people away.