I ran with Kara Goucher!

OK - not really.

But I ran in the same race as Kara Goucher! And I think that's pretty sweet!

(For those of you who don't know, Kara is Portland's own Olympic marathoner. She's crazy fast but seems really down-to-earth.)

While we were jammed in our corrals waiting for them to let us run at Sunday's Portland Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon (they assign you a waiting spot based on your expected finish time), Kara was in the front with all the other elite runners, stretching out and getting ready to zoom!

Mom and Dad were waiting at the start line and snapped a bunch of pictures.

  

Warming up:

On your marks:

Because of her speed and the staggered start times, Kara was nearly to the 5K mark when I started running! And when I reached the 10K mark, she was finished!

No surprise, Kara won the race for the female division, finishing 13.1 miles in 1:13:05 - a 5:35-mile-per-minute pace!

Just a tiny bit faster than I did it ;)