Duck and Run 5k

I haven't posted in a while.  That's mostly because my life has been consumed by two things over the past week. Work and the Duck and Run 5k.

This weekend was my first attempt to direct a race.  WOW!  It's a lot of work.  My wife made this happen.  She deserves all the credit for the success of this event.  And I must say that this event was a resounding success.  We made very good proceeds for KALB and everyone at the race had so many positive things to say and seemed to have great fun.

I was more nervous for this event than I was for my first marathon.  I had nightmares the week before the race.  I kept dreaming that I'd never get the race started on time because I'd be running around getting nothing done.  I dreamed that half of my volunteers backed out Friday night.  I dreamed that the police didn't show up.  I dreamed that I totally botched the scoring.  I dreamed that someone got ran over by a car that ignored traffic control.  I dreamed that we ran out of food.  I dreamed that we ran out of water.  I dreamed that we had 500 people sign up on race day.  I dreamed that the leaders missed a turn and got lost in the last mile, causing about half the field to go the wrong way. I guess the only thing I didn't dream was the classic showing up naked dream.

I'm glad to say that none of those nightmares came to be.  It was a great event (if I do say so myself) and I'm SO glad that I did it.  Now, I need a week to recover from this.  And here is my sage advice for anyone considering becoming a race director.  Don't!

We had 263 finishers, and the largest age group was 11-14. There were 85 runners between 11 and 19.  Almost all of those were from Limestone County. I can't describe how happy that makes me. I believe the sport of running is very healthy in Limestone County.  I'm going to do my part to keep it that way.

The community of Athens came out big time to support the runners. There was much cheering and fun to be had by all.  I even had a couple of local celebrities at the event, Bill Holtzclaw and Mayor Dan Williams!

As a result of work (ugh, but it pays the bills and supports my running addiction) and the Duck and Run 5k, I had to put a hold on my marathon training.  I had a 35 mile week with no long run.  I will not be running near 3:00 this year. But Athens had a good September 5k.