twenty-three

Today I ran my very first race, the Inaugural Bellingham Bay 10K! And it was awesome! The whole race experience, the actual running, the start and finish lines, it was quite exciting.

While I sort of wish I could have been up for the 1/2 marathon, the 10K was a perfect distance to start off with for my first official race. It was the farthest I’d run up to this point since my running career began in August. But, I’m pretty happy I did do the 10K, because I did pretty well. I ran it in a clock time of 53:10, finished 47th out of 259 10K runners and placed (that’s right, placed) 3rd in my 20-24 age division! I had been so excited just to finish, so I ran over to look at my time once it was posted and was very happy with my recorded name and rank overall, that I actually missed the fact that I’d placed 3rd for my age bracket. Only after we had been waiting around at the finish line for awhile did I actually go back and figure out that I got a cool little medal too!

There were a ton of people down there (I think I heard something like 2100 participated). Stacy and her small group friends walked the 1/2 marathon, Jim and Lindsay (some of my INN co-staff) ran the 1/2, and friends Nick, Kortney, Fil, and Jesse ran the marathon. There were also a few INN students, people from church, community people we know. It was fun to do a first race like this with so many other people I knew, a very community-friendly event!

Here’s a few more pictures from the day and a link to see the route I ran and the route Stacy walked.

Aren’t we sporty?

1/2 and full marathon walkers

Me and Jimmy

The walkin’ ladies

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