Hippie Chick Quarter Marathon - 5/12

Eryn and I loved last year's Hippie Chick race so much that we convinced some friends and family to join us this year!

The all women's event is just great - very accepting of all shapes, sizes and abilities. A wonderful morning!

Up early and ready to go:

 

My toes wanted to match my neon shirt:

The meet-up spot with Dad, Mom, Lynn, Eryn, Mike, AJ and Brad:

Ditching our stuff at the bag check:

Kris, Mom, Eryn, Lynn and me ready to head to the start:

Beautiful day!

I have no idea what Kari's doing here. The lady next to her is also wondering:

So what do all the men and children do while 3,000 women are running?

Getting our pancakes ready:

Here I come. I immediately spotted Brad up in the stadium and gave a little wave:

Friend Tamara right in front of me:

About to enter the stadium:

The finish!

My amazing coworker and spin instructor, Connie, finished just before me. It was fun to see her, her husband Marc and my dad right at the finish line:

Feels great!

Here comes Eryn, about to get lapped by the half-marathon winner:

Eryn's been sidelined for three weeks by an Achilles injury and planned to walk the whole thing. But it felt great, so she ended up running a good portion:

Here comes Kari:

And Kris, Mom and Lynn:

I think AJ snuck in while we were in the stadium with Eryn. We never did find her after the run :(

Girls rule!!!!

I scored some sweet shades from the Brooks bus. But I think they'll look better on my 15-year-old cousin, so Kayla scored some sweet shades :)

OK - time for those pancakes. That's the biggest thing of syrup I've ever seen:

Nice!

While we were all running and walking the quarter marathon (6.55 miles), Vicki and Denise were running the half marathon (13.1 miles). And while we ate pancakes, they were still out there kicking butt.

Great job on your first half!!

Can I say how proud I am of all these ladies?? We had a wonderful morning - so glad you all joined me! Let's all do it again next year :) :)

So here's my personal recap:

Because I've been training so hard with very specific goals for next weekend's half marathon, I wanted to stay focused on that and just use this as a tapering training run. It was really hard for me to just run it and not race. I didn't even kick at the end - and I always sprint the finish!

In what was extremely frustrating at the time but now seems like divine intervention, my Garmin wouldn't turn on as I walked to the starting line. So for the first time in a couple years, I ran a race naked. I wore Brad's watch so I had some idea of my time, but I really didn't know my pace at all (I'm not one of those who can do the math in my head and figure it all out). I ran comfortably and hoped I wasn't super slow.

The run felt good, despite the quickly rising temp and bright sun.

Official results have me at 1:01:35 - a 9:24-minute-mile average. I was 21/170 in my age group and 98/929 for the quarter marathon.

A wonderful day, a wonderful run, wonderful women. We will do it again. I hope more of my awesome ladies will join me :)