Run Wild! 5K

Today, Mr. Marathon and I took off to RUN WILD through the North Carolina Zoo.  We had another early morning this morning.  We woke up at 4 AM to hit the road by 5 AM.  Mr. Marathon, his mom, his 2 nieces, and I arrived at the zoo before 7.  We picked up packets, stood in a ridiculously long porta-potty line, then lined up at the start and took off.  Mr. Marathon obviously started at the front of the pack, but his mom and nieces started more towards the middle with me.

Nadyra, Alheli, Teresa (Mr. Marathon's mom) and Mrs. Marathon

I was really looking forward to this run because it's not just a normal 5K.  This run took place through the actual zoo!  So obviously, I was looking forward to seeing some animals, and I brought my camera on the course with me just in case.  Well, I guess the 7:30 AM start time was too early for the animals, because none of them were out!  Except for 1 zebra, and I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get a picture of it.  Oh, well.  Besides the disappointment of not seeing animals, it was a nice day to run a 5K.  The weather was perfect this morning.  It was fairly cool with some clouds, and it was shady along the trails through the zoo, so it felt good.  The only surprising thing was the difficulty of the course.  We knew it would be a little hilly because we know the area, and we've visited that zoo before.  However, running it is very different from walking around looking at the animals.  Between mile 2-2.5 the hills were a little more intense than anticipated.  The slow inclines were unrelenting!  But, after the awful terrible horrible uphills, there was a nice, steady downhill from about 2.5 to pretty much the end of the race, which was very nice!

All of us after the race!

Now, I have to take a minute to brag about Mr. Marathon.  He's an amazing runner, anyway, let's be honest.  However, if you asked me yesterday, "How do you think he's going to do in the Run Wild 5K tomorrow?" I would have said, "You know, he probably won't do all that great..."  Why you ask?  Because he had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday!  To sum it up, he re-dislocated his shoulder (remember the first time that happened?), his drive home from work was tragic, his phone screen shattered, and he got a toothache.  A lot happened yesterday to him.  Despite his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, he kept a good attitude today.  But that's not all.  He decided give it his all today, and it paid off.  It paid off with a finish time and new PR of 18 minutes 53 seconds!!!!!!!!!  And he brought home 1st place in his age group!!!!!!! WOWIE.  And to think, a fellow runner warned Mr. Marathon that this is NOT a course to PR on.   He says CHALLENGE ACCEPTED lol.

Oh, and you know I ran too.  I finished in 35:48, which put me at finishing 40th out of 83.  This race was huge!  It was almost 500 people!

A view of the post-race hullabaloo

Next up on our race calendar, we have a double header: Run for Justice 5K/10K in the morning, and Light up the Night 5K at night, both on June 21.  We'll be working hard getting ready for the next 2 weeks!