Thursday, August 16, 2012

Run With All Your Hart


A little while back I told about Sarah Hart a runner close to my area that was murdered on an early morning run~ such a tragedy. Sarah was also a well known pharmacist in her hometown. Her family decided to hold a 4mile race in her honor and to raise money for scholarships for local kids. So many business' and people wanted and was willing to donate to this it was unreal!  In just a matter of a couple of months they was able to pull together probably the most awesome race EVER!!

Look at all the people
In the beginning it was said that only the first 300 people registered would get shirts, they filled up so quick they had to take that back and along with local business donating shirts this race grew to 2900 runners/walkers! (They also had a 1.5mi fun run/walk for anyone not wanting to do the 4mi) Then someone suggested they do a virtual race as well, they even sent shirts out to all virtual runners as well and had around 1500 of them register! So many people were touched by Sarah's story. This is probably the greatest race I have EVER been to,a DJ playing music, the KY Wildcat and Louisville Cardinal Mascot that raced each other through the shoot,  there was a vendor set up passing out free sunglasses, UK College of Pharmacy doing blood pressure screening and such, a jewelry vendor donating portions of profits, tons of PowerAde and water bananas, oranges and watermelon! The mile marker signs were pictures of Sarah's children I saw several runners kiss there fingers and touch the pictures as they went by, it was so touching!

The starting line up
Along the course there was cheer leaders from the local high school and bands about every 3/4mile. All for a simple 4mi race!!


This isn't even all of my group!
I really REALLY wanted to medal at this race, not to be greedy or think I am someone but I knew the medals would be something different and unusual. Me and all of my buddies lined up right up front of the starting line, it started out flat then downhill before a nice long steady uphill. I haven't run the exact course before but I have ran a couple of races in that area and was familiar with how hilly it was. I told myself NOT to start out all crazy fast knowing this and one of my buddies was wanting to pace at around 8 flat, I told her I would do my best and stay with her as long as I could. Well we all took off like crazy people when I looked down at my watch (when we was going downhill) it said 6:46 pace~ HOLY SMOKES that is way to fast for me and there was that terrible steady uphill coming. Once I found my man running buddy I paced behind him, he was a little bit ahead of me but not too far so I knew if I just stayed close to him I would be ok. (I've said this many times but I don't like to look at my pace during races, it freaks me out and I "think" its too fast for me so I just don't look!) In my mind several times I wanted to walk but I just told myself "Don't DO IT! DON'T let Ricky get too far ahead of you!!" Right after we passed the 3mi mark my buddy Ricky turned to look back and see where I was and motioned for me to come on and get up there with him~ HOW SWEET of him. We passed a sign that said 9/10 to go and I knew I could do it, along with my buddy's encouragement:) We stayed beside each other the entire last mile, we got mixed in with some of the 1.5mi walkers and saw a blind woman out with her family, how nice was that of her to come out for Sarah's family!

Me looking a little stressed and Ricky (in the blue/black) right behind me!

At the beginning of the race we all threw out what our goal times were, mine was 35:20 my finish time was 33:11 by my garmin and 33:06 official time and I was

Is that not the coolest Medal ever??
 
      
   3rd in my age group!!! I smashed that goal time:)

I can not wait to continue to do this race year after year even though I did not know Sarah Hart I want to be a part of helping her memory live on!

1 comment:

Suz and Allan said...

Congratulations on placing 3rd in your age group! What an impressive turnout for the race! I wish I had known there was a virtual run option.