With St. Patricks day upon us, What better way to celebrate than with an Ice Cold Green Beer! However, if you do not have green beer…or food coloring to turn your Honey Brown beer green, then the next best thing is to run a race!
So today was the 10K Lucky Run in North Liberty, Iowa. It was nice doing a local run this time as we were able to sleep in our own beds and stay a bit longer for the after race events. The Run itself was a rather small affair. I would say slightly larger than the run for Chocolate. Oh! And Much better done…in my opinion. Hats off to the people from “We Run” ( The Store name of the People who organized the run) I think they made a little go a very long way. 
We went there yesterday to register and pick up the Packet and T-shirt. The Shirt was a cool tech shirt this time as opposed to a simple cotton one. Cheryl might just wear this one on one of her training runs.
We took the remainder of yesterday off while I fixed my bike ( again!) from another flat tire. I guess the PSI was a little too much for the patch to take.
Anyway, This all meant that we had to rise and shine nice and early this morning. We saw something we had not seen in quite a while…..a sunrise! Cheryl decided to take several pictures. 
We arrived, parked the car and checked out the stations. Cheryl had two goals in mind for this race. 
First was to set a new personal record. Second: Be the first to cross the finish line in her age group. She did a little research and found that there was a high probability if she could consistently run faster than an 8 minute mile.
The race started at 8 am. It was a little cool this morning with a bit of a brisk wind. 
Luckily the coarse was fairly flat, meaning “ no hills!” There would be three races running all at the same time. 
This causes a bit of confusion as it looks like there are “slow people” winning the race; when in fact, 
they are simply running the 5K and the 10K people are lapping them. 
So, Lucky for me as the ‘photo journalist’ I was able to run ahead at where the coarse looped back and catch 
Cheryl at several points. She was wise to down dress for the temperature as we run in this climate everyday. 
I watched several people take off bits of clothing half way around the coarse as they overheated. It is probably a surprise to some people that running generated that much heat over a short length of time.
Cheryl clipped right along at the edge of the “elites”. She followed a couple of people who were “easy to pick out of a group” so I knew when to snap her picture. 
I had the camera set on “continuous’'” so I would not have to post a movie of her running this time. Movies are such a pain to edit anyway.
I had a pretty good feeling about her pace as every time she came into view she looked relaxed and smiling. 
She had already lapped several of the 5K people and was pushing towards her fastest 5K yet. The Results for the 10 K are not in yet, but I will post them when they list the finals online. I could have found out there after everyone was finished, but Cheryl did not want to wait around.
So in the end, She finished in under 50 minutes. Of this we are fairly sure as the timer said 49:30. The Chip time is the official time since it takes about 10 –30 seconds just to cross the start line! 
After she was finished and collected up her medal, We headed over to the “Top in their Class” trophies. Cheryl was hoping for a top 3 placement in her age group. I thought she had a pretty good chance as I was studying the females who were ahead of her. First: there were not many of them. Second: many of them were young. 
I want to stress that the ogling I was doing was purely as a professional team scout. And NOT as a perverted old man!
Finally they read off the names of the 10 K winners in their age groups. Cheryl was #1!!!!
She is VERY happy! Just how happy you ask? She was so happy she forced me to go out for Ice Cream AND donuts! I guess you can eat anything you want if you average 8 minute miles over 6 miles.
So there it is! Cheryl is a big winner and I got to ogle younger competitors without looking creepy. I also got to pet several dogs. Dogs are So cool!
The next event, Unless Cheryl schedules another “fun run” into the mix, will be the Lincoln Presidential Half marathon. It’s coming up in two weeks. Perhaps she will be able to get a new personal record at this event as well. In fact: I’m POSITIVE she will….mostly because she has not yet run an official half marathon.
So the Official results are IN! Cheryl finished 41 over all. ( That is out of 184 competing in the 10 K) Overall there were just over 400 participants running in all three races. Her time was 49:18 with an average of 7: 57 minutes per mile! She has been wondering if she could keep that pace over a 6 mile run….I guess we now know that she can. Let’s see if she can do it over 13.1 miles!
And even more pictures here:
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