While yesterday marks Dana's first time running in an organized event. She did outstanding, despite the high heat and poorly marked course.
See I got into running last spring and have found that I really enjoy it. But this year Dana joined a class to learn how to run longer distances and now we go for a run together 4 nights a week. Since I have been working again I do not have time to go to the city to run with my friend. This means that I have been running by myself out in Martensville. This can be boring and tedious since part of the fun of running is having someone to chat with, and cheer on. While now that Dana has started running with me it has made my runs that much more fun. I love going for runs with her and seeing her improve. She is now a 3km runner, not extra far but further then many people can ever run. I am very proud of her and I keep telling her that next year by this time she will be running 10km.
So back to the run yesterday, this was called the Dirty Dozen. You could register in a 12km, 6km, or 3km run, see their site for more information: http://www.scs.sk.ca/dirtydozen/ . As I said before this was the first organized run that Dana has been involved in and due to this, she was a little bit nervous. She was running the 3km and George (my friend) and I were running the 12km. So she was going to be alone. I was very worried about her and tried talking her into letting me run with her, but she was adamant that I do the long distance and she would be fine. We all took off and George and I stayed with the front pack. Then as we got to about 1.5 km the front pack got confused and ran around in a loop. We took a horse path instead of the path made for us through the field. By the time we realized what we had done we were back at the starting line and had to do an extra 2 km. This meant we were running a 14 km instead of a 12 km. Well George and I just laughed and kept going. We knew we could do the distance, it just meant our goals for time were not going to be met. Oh well off we went.
As for Dana, well she was doing very good. She was not far behind us and holding her own. However this meant that she was also tricked into taking the wrong route. When she got back from the parking lot to the crossroads she had only 1km left in her run. Instead of continuing to the turn around point she opted to just head to the finish line, this meant she ran a total of 3.5 km. But it also meant that she did not get to go to the turn around point and get water/Gatorade, and freezies. She was looking forward to a freezie but due to the mistaken course layout she missed out. Oh well in the next run she will get there. :)
The mistaken course layout was nothing more then an accident. The organizers did not realize that there was a horse trail at the point where we were expected to go into the field. If they had known they would have put pylons out to ensure we did not go the wrong way, and in fact they promised they would next year.
The neat part of this run is that all money raised goes to the Children's Wish Foundation, and they give you a lot for coming out. We got nice backpacks, water bottles, pens and other trinkets. After the run they have a big BBQ and feed everyone, then they have draws and speeches. The draws are setup so that every person who ran or volunteered gets something. This is very cool and really shows you how much time and energy the organizers must have put into the run. They spent the time to ensure that enough sponsors donated items to give everyone a little something. Good on them, it made our day entertaining.
Well in the end we all got some exercise, a good meal, some prizes and had a wonderful time. If we are around next year we will totally go back. It was a great run and I must say a big thanks to the organizers who did a wonderful job.
