After most XC races, there is a Citizen's Race on the same course. I don't typically run them mainly cause I don't want to embarrass myself. But, at the home meet this year, I decided to take my gear. It helped that Curtis was able to go to the meet and brought his too and definitely pushed me to do it. He promised he would run with me :)
The kids like this course because it is pretty flat and has some pavement and packed dirt which makes it "fast". It is out in a campground by the Pend Oreille River so you are running by the water for a little bit. There is not usually official timing in the Citizens Race - it is more about just enjoying it. Oh by the way, out coach, Matt Brass, did win in 16 something. Insane! (He was finishing about the time I was at the 2 mile.)
The gun went off, and it is a bit daunting for me cause you typically have a bunch of XC coaches, old HS runners, kids who may not have run the race but are on a team, etc. So they all start off pretty fast, but off Curtis and I went. We were running and I told Curtis I was pretty tired and breathing hard. I thought that maybe it was because I had been standing around for 4 hours at the finish chute, but then we got to the first mile and Curt said we were at 8:15. No wonder I was tired! That is fast for me. We kept going and he wasn't letting me slow down, plus there is that factor of the HS team seeing me and cheering me. You know, I didn't want to appear to be slacking. The second mile, 16:30 so we were at the same pace. You loop twice on this course and probably around 2.5 or more, I was I have to slow down a bit. We came to mile 3 (I have no idea what the time was) and just past that was Sydney and a bunch of the XC kids. Sydney yells "Kick you guys"! Well unfortunately there is very little kick in this girl, but I tried to push myself down to the finish line and hopefully look like I was still running. And we finished! 25:52!!! A new PR! I was exhausted but even with a lowkey race, it felt pretty dang good.
Curtis finished right before me. No PR but I don't think I could've done it without him. He kept me going. It was probably a bit of a fluke, but whatever, not bad for a 50 year old.
