Gate River Run 15K

The Gate River Run is the largest 15K in the U.S. and serves as the national 15K championship race. Olympic-quality athletes run this race...and now so do I. This morning I drove to Jacksonville to run this monster-of-a-race with Anna and Krystial. I was so excited because I have been looking forward to this for weeks. I even woke up before my alarm clock went off because I was too excited to sleep. The race didn't disappoint, but I must admit that it was very different than the 5Ks that I've been doing lately. One difference was that it was 3 times longer (obviously), but it was also different because there were so many people (15,323 to be exact). After checking in and stretching, we headed to the starting line. The gun was fired at 8:30 and then "Chariots of Fire" began to play on the loudspeaker. I got to hear almost the whole song because it took me nearly 10 minutes to make it to the starting line after the gun was fired (15,000 plus people trying to cross a starting line takes a while). Once I began running, I spent the first three miles weaving in and out of slower runners. The runners around me began to thin out a little around mile 4, but it was still pretty jammed-packed the whole time. In spite of all of the people everywhere, I was still running a pretty good race. I made it to mile 7 with no problem whatsoever. I began to tire a little in mile 8, but my pace was still pretty good. Mile 9, however, killed my time. This last mile of the race is the toughest because you have to go over a very large, steep bridge. Here's the math: one large bridge + having already run 8 miles = time killer. Needless to say, I struggled to make it to the top of the bridge. I even had to stop and walk three or four times. However, once I made it to the top, it was literally downhill to the finish. Ahhh... the thrill of victory.

So, how did I do in my first 15K? Well, I finished the race in 1:31:37. Of the 13,341 people who actually finished the race, I was number 5,028. In my age group, I finished 273 of 1,052. I would say that this is not too bad for a first try. My results were good enough this year that I'll qualify to be a seeded runner next year. This will be good because I won't have to do so much weaving in and out of people next time. Here is a picture of me, Anna, and Krystial with our medals after the race. You can really tell that we just ran 9.3 miles! We really need to start taking pictures before the race while we still look normal.