Gotta love the rain.

This weekend, we took another short break and had visitors. These were visitors with a purpose. These visitors were friends of ours who had signed up to run a race with us. The Crazylegs Classic. We signed up for the 5mile run. This run starts at the State Capitol, goes through the University campus, and ends at the football stadium, where you have the option of rehydrating with either water or beer.

It has been a bit cold here, so that we were expecting. What we were NOT expecting was the deluge of water that poured from the sky. We ate our pre-race breakfast thinking, maybe the rain will stop. We drove downtown and parked, thinking, maybe the rain will stop. We walked about 6 blocks to the Capitol, thinking, maybe the rain will stop.

Nope. It even added thunder and lightening during this process. We decided to hang out in the Capitol to get a bit of warmth before the race started. Three of us started in wave ll, that's double-L, as the waves started at A and then continued on right past Z to start over again. We weren't last, however, as the waves did end at nn. One of our party started in wave S. (One other actually was supposed to start in wave P, but was nice and decided to "run" with us girls back in wave ll.)
He headed into line, while the deluge poured from the skies. We stood under a roof canopy trying to stay dry. From the time the gun went off to the time we crossed the starting line, it was almost 45 minutes, and we were thoroughly soaked. Our shoes went squish, our noses were dripping, and there was no thermal insulation left in our pants. Luckily we had raincoats to help with the water from the sky. We had nothing to help with the splashing up from the ground.

Our goal was to finish in under 1hour. At first it seemed like the race was going to go on forever. But, soon we got into a rhythm and off we went. Down the street, up the giant hill, and through the campus we ran. At least there were thousands of people (about 19,000) running, and many more cheering along the route. I sort of trained for the race by running up and down our stairs many many times. The training was proving to be ok.

(We are the two in blue in the picture.)

After 4.75 miles, the end was in sight. We could see the stadium and hear the cheering, and our stride sped up to match the energy level around us. Finally we crossed the finish line, completely drenched and exhausted, but under the 1hr time limit we had set. Yay!

Time for a beer, warm food, and dry clothes. At least I got one race out of the way this year. It remains to be seen if there will be more - I'm aiming for a few more at least.