rr: bunny boogie 3 miler

in a strange twist, i almost had to skip this race. last night i had a fever of 100.9 - which went a long way toward explaining why i died at mile 4 of my training run, and struggled to finish the final two miles to get back home. i skipped the second run. instead i took advil, multi-vitamins, and went to bed early. this morning i had coffee and advil for breakfast. then katie and i drove to darien for the race.


this is a fun course, and can be fast. there's one notable climb at the end of the first loop, but it's basically a net downhill elevation. since this was katie's first race and sustained run since last fall, i wanted her to take it easy - and even power walk the hill. the women started the race 2 and a half minutes before the men. until i caught up to her, emmy was kind enough to pace katie during the race.


there were plenty of parents running with their kids, including my friend joe, who was there with his daughter. other friends there included, rob, kate, john, tom, art and gail - just to list a few of them. that led to a lot of pre and post-race socializing. i actually felt like a quasi-tourist, running the race with my camera! in fact, my race was mostly a series of leap frogging sprints to catch up to katie, snap a picture and run on to the next location.


the hardest running i did was at the start, mainly to make-up the 2.5 minute deficit and catch up to katie and emmy. somewhat surprising them, i sprinted in front and snapped a great shot of them in action. then i ran on ahead, took up a strategic position on top of the hill, and snapped away. i got a couple of good shots of john, then katie and emmy, cresting the hill. then i ran to the finish, catching up to kate in the process, and took pictures of them finishing.


i finished in 24:06, an 8:02 pace. katie finished in 31:03, a 10:21 pace - which included walking breaks. despite a minute off target, i was very happy with her performance. even though she didn't place in her age group, jim, the race director, gave her a chocolate bunny (race chocolate instead of hardware) after the award ceremony! what a nice gesture on his part!

check out emmy's race report and photos


next week we'll run the scarsdale 4 miler together - at a slightly faster pace :)