5Ks, Painful, but you get done real quick...

So one of my running friends belongs to an organization that raises money to feed poor and homeless.  It's a religious organization, and anybody who knows me knows I'm not religious at all, but since its raising money to feed the poor I figured it was a good cause. 

On a side note, I see lots of homeless who have pets (dogs mostly) and I would love to challenge any organization to raise money to neuter/spay and vet pets of the homeless.  hint, hint...

Any way, this organization hosted a 5K this morning to raise money for their cause and I decided to run it.  Now, I normally am not a fan of 5K's but I made a concession for this one since my friend was helping to organize it.

Also, my wonderful friend, Misti Harper came in from Fayetteville and ran it with me and that made things even more fun!  She has become a really good runner over the last year and I'm really proud of her.  Yay Misti!!!

So we started the run in a much needed steady rain and finished in a drizzle.   The course was flat, mostly on the river trail and adjoining roads.  We started out at the soccer complex and ran along the road splashing though puddles like children, dodging goose poop and struggling to breath through the soupy high humidity that accompanies all those things.  The 5K is an icky distance, basically you kill yourself for 3 miles trying to run the whole thing as fast as you can.  You cat and mouse with people and pass and think you have overcome just to see them get their second wind and pass you 5 feet from the finish....fun.   But today was pretty good, no last minute passers and I managed to run pain free for the entire race.  I also won in the Masters age division.   Yep, Masters...that means I'm getting old.

When you get older you have more opportunities to win.  You have age group awards then if your over 40 you get Masters awards.  I'm not sure how this came about but I like it!

I heard my name and I went up to get my bobble head award.  She will go on my self at work and keep my other bobble head company.  Getting awards here and there like that makes running really fun.  You never know what you might come out with.