Saturday, April 26th, I ran the Kentucky Derby mini-Marathon. Thankfully, I was not injured during or after the race; I have heard about a few people who were hurt during the race. To my knowledge, PETA has not threatened organizers about how the injured from this race were handled.
I did not purchase the photos that were taken during the race of me, but I'll link them. I showed this one to my 8th grader friend, Brian, who said it looked like I was walking. The other shot isn't great either. And truly, the race T-shirt and the medal are both things I would hesitate to wear in public. So, you must trust me that I did run the entire race. My official time was 1:43:24, putting me comfortably behind 735 other runners, many of whom were much older, one of whom was a 13-year-old boy, and a few hundred of whom were women. That might be enough for me to retire from racing.
What caught the attention of this first-time racer? Four Elvis impersonators, one Spiderman, one princess, my first time in Churchill Downs, the gigantic litter volume created by racers, all the free stuff at the Finish line, the energizing effect of crowds cheering along the road, and the value of keeping pace with a seasoned runner for the last five miles.
5 comments:
John Mark, I laughed out loud after reading your PETA statement & Brian's comment!
For all the readers, I want you to know John Mark T. ran a PHENOMENAL race! & it was his first race ever. He finished before over half of the runners. & it was his first race! I can't wait to see John Mark T's future race times :)
I'd like to offer a correction to my friend's comment above: "all the readers" should actually say, "both of the other readers."
No harm was intended by the exaggeration.
The world is waiting - GO PUBLIC!
A third person has read and is commenting... Good job on the race. I bragged to a friend who has been running for a year about your race. She was impressed. We have several runners in our church. It seems that the people we know in KS are more health conscious than the ones we know from TX. I'm not sure what that means...
I think non-urban parts of TX share the ubiquitous "live-and-hope-you-keep-living" approach to personal health of the non-urban South. There are shining exceptions to this attitude here in KY and in TX, but post-highschool health consciousness outside the urban centers seems to be geared mostly toward health care instead of healthy living. Our county has a theme posted in the nearby park: Get Movin'.
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