Day 708--Rez Run

       The Rez Run (short for Resurrection Run) is something of a tradition for the Virtues and runner regulars. Ben first got me to do it whenever I started running, probably in 2009. Ben used to always go before he moved. CJ usually goes, but I did not see him this year. I did not even go last year because I had gotten tired of the regular short races that I had been doing year after year. I was convinced that they were influencing how I did in the Marathon, which usually was within a couple of weeks of the Rez Run. This year I only went because Mary asked me to go and I figured if I was just going to pace Mary, I would not push it too hard, which surprisingly I managed to do.

  Having taken a year off, I was shocked to see how much had changed. Brad was there pushing Nora (his new daughter), who was bundled up and laughing during the picture that Jessi took. Jacob came late due to a restroom related emergency. Mary was walking to meet me from my parents' house, but forgot my race-bib back in her car, so she ended up driving. I noticed a lot of people lining up on the wrong side of the starting line, which made me think they must be new because the course has not changed since I first ran it, still boasting the unique distance of 3.5 miles. During the race, I was impressed with how well it was organized, but it seemed to have fewer runners this year.  

It was a nice day, the sun was shining and the sky was clear. I was running next to an older lady who was really pushing it. It was fun pacing Mary, I was hoping she would PR, but I didn't really know what her current PR is, so I did not have any goal. Mary and I went relatively fast the last tenth of a mile while the small crowd was watching. I was good and stayed at the same pace as Mary and did not quickly go past her; even though, I was tempted to. The crowd cheered, and I heard someone tell Mary that she beat me.  

Afterwards, we went inside for the sausage breakfast sandwiches from Hardee's that are usually provided, but this time the church made their own breakfast sandwiches, and they had good gravy to go with their biscuits. After getting some food and coffee, Mary, Jake, and I sat down for the award ceremony. We were all talking about how slow we all went, when Jacob surprisingly placed in his age group with a time around twenty-five minutes. That's one thing that is fun about the Rez Run, in someways it is competitive and in other ways it is not. I always love seeing how many elderly people compete in the race. There was an older guy that sat next to me at breakfast. During the ceremony, he kept on asking about his age group and when it came up he did not get a medal, but Jacob did. The 60-69 age group was more competitive than the 20-29 age group. That older guy really wanted to talk about running with me. He was excited to show me his watch that also had a heart rate monitor. He asked me to turn it off, but I could not figure it out. It was a TimeX or something. I ended up being glad that Mary asked me to take part in the race.