ARR Race #1

Between my knee hurtin' and low mileage I've been putting off running in any races. But, some deals are too good to pass on. The Arizona Road Racers have a series of 5 races during the summer in parks throughout the metro area. For $20 you get to run in all 5 races. Yeah, $20. You have to be a member, so I joined for $20. That's $8 a race. I'm running in 4 of them, so it's $10 a race for me. T-shirts are extra and I'll probably buy one of them.

I needed to run in a race. It was well organized and had a lot of runners. 494 to be exact. It was chip timed and was held at Papago Park near the zoo. I knew I was going to set any PR's, but it sure felt good to be out there in the middle of the pack.

This race had a staggered start. The older you are, the earlier you get to start. I started 12 minutes after the gun sounded and within minutes I was getting passed by all these younger runners. They had it rough because they had to weave in and out between us slower and older runners. I don't know what the hurry was about, but some of them were flying. I ran steady, but since I'm not in top form (for me) I ended up taking walk breaks. I forgot to start my Nike + and realized it about 1/4 of a mile into the race. It still helped me with my pacing. In the end I ran a 38:05 race. I could have run it a tad faster, but in the last half of the race I met up with a friend from Team In Training, Roland. We ran it in together at a leisurly pace. He started later than me and had a better time than me, but I was glad to run with him over the last 1.5 miles or so.

After the race, ARR had bagels and cream cheese, cookies, chips, water melon and sodas. The line was long and we ended up waiting 15-20 minutes to get something to eat. It was the cream cheese that slowed the line down. I offered to walk down the line with the water melon so that runners could get something right away, but the water melon cutting lady thought I was crazy. I guess she thought people should have to wait in line and suffer. I wasn't going to argue with a knife carrying lady.

I never tasted water melon so good. The next race is June 16th at the Reach 11 Horse Lover's Park. Anyone in Arizona, I highly recommend ARR races. I believe, Phil is very active with ARR.