rr: "cook your buns" 3 miler

what a great time this race was! katie's race report and the earlier update covered most of the important details, so this race report will be brief. katie ran "cook your buns" back in 2005, as a 10 year old, has run a couple of other races at tod's point over the years, and even biked there with one of her camp friends who happens to live nearby.

on the drive over i told katie her only time goal was to finish faster that 29:55, her 2005 time. as i put it, "you wouldn't want 10 year old katie to have bragging rights over 13 year old katie!" she didn't think running a faster time would be much of a problem - the confidence of youth! as mentioned in her report, we played the b-52s on the drive over to greenwich.

we hit some major rush hour traffic on i-95, so i called emmy and asked her for directions from exit 4 (instead of exit 5). instead, she met us at the metronorth station just off the highway and we followed her to the beach. even with the back roads, we arrived minutes before 6:30 - and the start of the kids mile. but since the events were running late because of high race day turnout, there was more than enough time to line up.

while emmy and francoise waited with their children for the start, katie and i headed over to the finish of the kids mile. on the way there we said hello to, among others, john, dawn, kate, and amy, before we settled in to cheer on the mile runners. after the kids mile we lined up at the bottom of the grassy hill for the 3 miler. then, seemingly, without warning, the race started when the crowded surged up the hill.

the up and down in the initial quarter mile was the most elevation change on the course. the rest was on park roads and, in the last half mile, on the beach itself. we went out at a comfortable pace and, except for the tough slog across the sand, enjoyed the course. katie actually managed progressively faster miles. her splits were 9:29, 9:21, and 9:13, respectively (with the first mile a bit slow because we were well behind the start line) for a 28:00 finish!

from the finish we headed over to the bbq line and collected some hamburgers and watermelon for our post-race meal. we found emmy, john, francoise, hugo and few more of emmy's friends who had come to help celebrate her birthday! not only did they bring a birthday cake - but a bottle of champagne found its way onto the picnic table! what a great celebration!

finally, on our way to the parking lot, in somewhat of a surprise twist, katie asked if she could run down to the water and get her feet wet. even at the late hour (then, just about 8:30) there were still plenty of families on the beach enjoying the water! so she made a quick detour down to the water and splashed around in her bare feet before we got eventually got back in the car for the drive home.

not the typical way i'd spend the night before a long race the next day (emmy and rob would be at my house at 5:50 the next morning for the drive down to forest meadow park in queens) - but i wouldn't have changed a thing!!