Well I set a new PR with the race today, but then again so did most everyone who ran since 3K races are far and few between. The race director made sure to point this out during the award ceremony as well.
The race was at the local zoo and was mainly done to help promote the new vulture exhibit that opened last weekend. It was put on by the local running store as part of their race series. This was the inaugural race and it had 480 people sign up.
It did have tech shirts and they are very cute. They are probably the best I have gotten from all the races and means I will have to look out for the other races in their series. The runners just had to show their bib and they were given entry into the zoo for the day. Since we have annual passes this didn't help us much but we saw several people in line to get into the zoo.
Mel, the boardwalks may never be the same with all the runners pounding on them. We will have to check out the tortoise area again but I think the chicken wire is still there.
Before the race, we were able to see a red tailed hawk and the signature vulture wandering around. The stores mascot, Zippy the Gecko, was also out.
The race was fairly quick but it started outside the zoo and went to a quick turnaround in their driveway. From here it wound around the back by the giraffe and rhino habitats. There were some sort of deer out watching us here. A little further down an ostrich was running with us but soon tired of chasing us. We ran about .8 miles and then we entered through the back of the zoo.
We ran along the main circle/hub and left through the Florida area. On the way out, we could see the alligators waiting to get any wayward runners. The deer weren't out at the time though. We left through the back of the zoo again and were greeted by a porcupine, pigeon, baby alligator and a huge python, all held by their handlers of course.
Then we were headed back towards the finish line along the same path we went into the zoo on. It is supposed to be 1.86 miles and I registered 1.9 but I forgot to turn the Garmin off immediately so it was pretty close. My official time was 16:02. I ended up 5th in my age group out of 17 which surprised me. I missed 4th by 1.5 seconds.
The overall winner of the race finished at 9:47 so I still have room for improvement.
The medals for the winners were cute. They had ribbon stickers on stuffed vultures with plastic medals. If we had Billy run, he could have come in second in his age group and gotten one.
They did have a kids race afterwards that Billy ran in. He was quite determined that he run alone and didn't want to go with me. He did well and had a determined look on his face. He got a little bag of goodies afterwards and seemed to have fun.
They have already planned next years and it is called the Dino Dash. I am wondering how they are going to get a dinosaur there but I guess they have a year to figure it out.
Bill
GO, TEAM, GO!!
Anne
Great time--and a PR is a PR no matter how odd the distance!!!
