Photos of me from the Boilermaker

This was my first 15K race. I did a 10K in May and am working my way up to the Rochester Half-Marathon in September. My chiropractor has a poster of him at the Boilermaker in 2005. It is totally cool, so I ordered one of me.

brightroom event photography - Judi

Shared via AddThis

Photos of Mark from the Boilermaker

Mark ran his first 5K in Utica. He was pleased with his time considering he was in a crowd of 2000 runners and couldn't really run all out like he can at home.

brightroom event photography - Mark

Shared via AddThis

Photos of Kirsten from the Boilermaker

Kirsten did the Boilermaker 5K race. Her first 5K.
There aren't any close-ups of her. She's in a gray T-shirt with her hair pulled back in a pony-tail.
brightroom event photography - Kirsten

Shared via AddThis

Photos from the Boilermaker

In the lobby of our hotel at 6am ready to split into two cars and head to the 15K and 5K starting lines!

Our 5K runners - Melissa, Kirsten, Mark, Justin and Morgan

The 5K runners nicknamed us 15K runners "The Crazy Ones" - Russ, me and Marathon Laura

Okay - so I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Russ and I held back at the beginning waiting for that brutal hill to appear, but it seems our hills here in Lima are rougher than the one on the Boilermaker route in Utica. It reminded me of a story my Uncle Bob tells about running the Boston marathon. He was running up this hill towards the end of the race and said to the guy next to him "Is this heartbreak hill?" The guy answered back "Yep." My uncle said he knew right then and there, he'd made it, he'd conquered Boston. Once we could see the crest of the 4-mile hill, we knew the rest was going to be cake. We were lucky - it was a cool day, more like May than July. It was nice running weather. I'm sure if it'd been hot, it would've seemed a lot more difficult.

Russ and I hoped to finish in under an 11 minute mile. We ran the first few miles at our 11 min pace, saving some energy for "the hill." But once we figured out at mile 3.5-ish that the hill wasn't as bad as we'd expected, we pushed it and cut a lot off our average time to come in at 10:47 minutes per mile. We ran together the entire race and finished at exactly the same time - 1:40:16 - with a little sprint at the very end. We were very pleased with our time, but now wish we'd pushed it earlier on because the hill wasn't awful. I finished 8,931st out of 10,583 15K runners. And yes, it seemed like that many runners! It took us 7 minutes of walking once the race started to just get to the starting line. There was a lot of dodging around people and trying to squeeze through. I had shin splints for the first few miles because my stride was so funky running in a crowd.

Marathon Laura (who ran the 15K loads faster than us) and the 5K runners were all waiting for us at the end - Mark, Kirsten, Russ's wife and daughter (Melissa and Morgan), and Marathon Laura's husband Justin. By the time us slower 15K runners got to the party, the food was pretty well picked over, but there was beer available and Mark tells me the band was good. I was just so overwhelmed by the crowd that I didn't even notice Nik and the Nice Guys playing! I'm not sure I'd instigate going again, but the rest of the crowd wants to try it again next year, so I'll tag along.

A little note on Laura - Russ met her through the Lima Rotary. She raised money for Rotary International's global initiative of the eradication of Polio - all while running her first marathon in the beautiful city of Paris. Russ introduced her to me. He also has a sister Laura, so he started calling her Marathon Laura, so I'd know who he was talking about. He now calls her Laura from Leroy, but I think Marathon Laura is a much cooler (and well deserved) nickname!

Off to do the impossible

I signed myself up to run the Boilermaker in Utica on Sunday. It is a 15K race (that's 9.3 miles for the metric-challenged in the house.) You'll notice that it's uphill for the first 4 miles, then downhill for 2, up again for another 1.25. The remainder will be cake if I'm still upright. I didn't look at this elevation map before I signed up. If I did, I might have thought twice about it. Although, thinking twice probably wouldn't have stopped me. You see, I've become all about accomplishing what I believe is impossible and gaining control. Well, truth be told, I've always been about being in control, but it's gone off the deep end with running lately.

I saw my job as an older sister to be a bit like a police officer - I was there to serve and protect. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do the impossible. I couldn't make him better. I couldn't find his cure. I couldn't protect him. That REALLY bothers me. It also makes me realize that no matter how hard I try, I also can't protect my kids, or his kids, or Mark, or my parents, or anyone else I care about. So in my mixed up, control-freak mind, I'm controlling myself - attempting to accomplish physical feats that I would normally consider impossible. Seriously? Run UPHILL for 4 miles and then continue on running for another 5? Run 13.1 miles? Run 26.2 miles? Get real! I get winded carrying the laundry basket up the stairs. But I'm damn sure gonna control SOMETHING and so this my friends is it. So off I go to Utica tomorrow. On Sunday morning at 8am, I'll start up that 4 mile hill, wearing my "Remembering Jim" shirt, trying to convince myself that I'm in control and the impossible can happen.