4th of July 10K

Well, since last year's race, Jayton has been worried that some old dude was going to beat him in the 10K. In fact, he waited for me to go for a bike ride then had some lady hit me with her car. Joking, of course. We have had a fun year of training for the 4th of July race. Fun maybe is not be the right word. OK, it has been hellish.
The shirts for the race this year were worse than last year's! Obviously the people who design the images for the front of the shirt have never run or they would realize that a thick painted flag is going to do nothing but rip your nipples off!
We arrived at Kiawanis Park for the race at 6:45 AM and saw that there were huge lines at the Port-O-Johns. So we excused ourselves up to the school area. Thank you, Port-O-Bush! Waiting and waiting and, hey, was that the gun?!? We're off! Nothing like feeling like a herd of cattle to get started. I'll tell you, that first mile going up 900 East is a doozy. We stayed together for that and then going by the stadium I let go a little- you know, it is down hill. The run all through the parade route is great, especially when you have your iPod cranked up and can't hear a word people are saying. Well, Jayton caught up to me at the turn around by the State Hospital. Running back up 900 East is hard enough, but throw all the 5K people into the mix and suddenly you have to weave and move and avoid hitting kids and people walking and pushing strollers, etc. By the time we turned off 900 and were in the homestretch, it got real congested with people and a guy in a racing wheelchair almost took me out! Jayton started to sprint and I stayed with him. Again we were trying to avoid as many people as possible. I was feeling pretty good until a big guy walked off the sideline to hi-five a little kid trotting with his parents. I thought he would just go back to the side but then he turns and starts running along side of the boy! I had to do a major sidestep and it threw off my stride a little. But we kept going right to the end. The funny thing is our official time was the same 43:44 though Jayton beat me by a half step. I was really surprised to see our time since last year I was at 46:52.
Teresa managed to get a photo of our backs as we ran past. That's me in the gray shirt and Jaton in the white shirt and baseball hat. Lot's of fun, but glad it's done!
We hit the French toast breakfast at Macey's afterwards. Oooh, love their frothy syrup!
And was it just me or were the fireworks at the Stadium of Fire not quite what they've been in the past? I guess the recession has hit everyone hard. Chantel was there and loved the Jonas Brothers show. Wow, they're dreamy.