Mavis and the Tacoma St. Patrick’s Day 10k Race

My {camera shy} friend and I headed out early this morning to run/walk/jog {mostly walk} the Tacoma St. Patrick’s Day 10k race. There was a time limit of 1 hour 20 minutes, and without any training {except gardening} our only goal was to finish it before they started to tear down the road signs and the officers directing traffic went home.

There were people with dogs, strollers, kids, and my favorite, senior citizens.

After about 200 yards we spotted an elderly woman {in her 80’s?} and I said to my friend, let’s try and beat grandma. And so for the next 6.2 miles we tried to keep grandma in sight.

At the mile 1 marker we were pretty surprised at our time. In order to finish the race within the allowed time frame we had to come in under a 13 minute pace.

10:11? Not bad, not bad at all. Sure, there was a big downhill, and the people at the Boston marathon run their miles in less than half that, but hey, I think for a couple of moms with no time to train, we were doing pretty good.

Shut the front door!

I think I forgot to mention Ernesto came along for the ride as well. Even though St. Patrick’s Days is more for leprechauns, we didn’t want him to feel left out so we brought him along. I tried to keep his elf costume dry by shoving him in my sports bra. By the smile on his face, I think he liked it.

Sweet diggety!

Around this time I told my friend we totally should have signed up for the half marathon. She just laughed.

Still hanging in there.

If you’ve never been passed by a senior citizen at the finish line before, it’s pretty awesome.

I think our time was somewhere around 1 hour 11 minutes {we were towards the back of the line when the race started} so I’m guessing we finished with an 11:30 pace or so. Not super fantastic, but hey, we had fun, and we FINISHED! What more could we ask for?

Water guy.

Free banana.

Training… we don’t need no stinkin’ training!

Life is short. Go out there and have some fun!

~ Mavis