Yesterday's race with my cousin Laura was a huge success!


Hot and sweaty after the finish

We finished in 29:30, the fastest Laura has ever run three miles!

Race morning got off to a rocky start for me. Either my alarm didn't go off or I just slept right through it and woke up at the exact time I was supposed to meet Laura at the race start. I had a moment of sheer panic and then frantically threw on my race stuff and literally sprinted out the door to my parking lot. Wake up time to drive time was exactly 7 minutes.

I had a spazz attack every time I got stuck at a traffic light during the drive to the race start, but I eventually made it with time to spare.

We even had time to snag a pre-race photo.


Our race numbers were exactly 100 numbers apart.

Then we lined up at the start with about 400 other women, the race director made some announcements and we were off.


Ladies at the start

The course started on a downhill, making it hard to not start too fast. At one point I looked down at Garmin and saw we were at a 7:52 pace. We backed off the speed after that and settled into a pace that ranged from 9:15 to 10 minutes depending on the hills.


Big downhill


Running down the hill (photo courtesy of the Howard County Striders)

Laura had two goals for this race. The first was to finish. The second was to run the whole thing.

We knew finishing wouldn't be a problem and I was confident we'd be able to run the whole thing.


(Photo courtesy of the Howard County Striders)

We even ran through the water stop at mile two, where both of us ending up spilling more water down the front of our shirts than what we managed to get in our mouths.

Laura looked strong the entire time, even toward the end when we were both uncomfortably hot and drenched in sweat.


I don't take attractive pictures when running

When we got onto the last road before the finish, the course narrowed and we were just running on the shoulder, but Laura was dodging in and out of the cones managing to pick off people as we went.

With less than a tenth of a mile to go she took off at a full sprint. I took off right after her and we managed to pass a few more people before the finish line.

I wish there were finish line photos because we both probably had the biggest, corniest grins plastered on our faces as we were sprinting for the finish. At least I know I did.

In fact I probably looked a lot like this:


Hardcore cheesin'

Laura might have looked super fierce. I couldn't see her face, I was too busy eating her dust.

I can't say enough good things about this race. It was the perfect size, it was extremely well organized and we got an Under Armour top as the race shirt. Huge thanks to the Howard County Striders for putting on such a fun event. I'd do this race again in a heartbeat.

And a big congrats to Laura for kicking some serious booty in her first race! Hopefully I will be able to convince her to do many more in the future!