Rochester Half Marathon Recap

It was a whirlwind couple of days getting ready for the Half Marathon and 5K which took place on Saturday morning. First of all ... kudos to Jen and Jean for the most excellent job they did organizing the race. I deem it a huge success.

It started with me baking a batch of what else ... cookies ... for the volunteers.

Mid-morning it was off to Running Room to meet Jen and Jean to make a few stops (DM&E office, Minuteman Press, Bread Baker) before picking up the U-Haul truck. We stopped at Jen's house ...

and then my house ...

 to pick up supplies before heading to the RTC shed ...

 to pick up race equipment.

Lots of stuff to haul around. It would have been a LOT more work without a truck. Then it was off to Panera for lunch ...

 before setting up for registration/packet pick-up at Running Room later in the afternoon. I got 103 registrations on Friday evening and I believe there were 70 more on Saturday. Wow ...

Henry Walker's boys Ari and Bjorn each enjoyed a cookie :-) before heading to the playground before their ride home (all the way up to Quarry Hill!)

Saturday dawned with a 5:00 AM set-up starting time. The sun wasn't up yet, but there were already volunteers setting up at the finish line. There were lots of volunteers who gave a large portion of their morning (actually, several were there from 5:00 AM until almost 2:00) to the cause ... thank you one and all.

After setting up the food and medical tents, it was off to the start line

 to do race announcements and fire the starters gun.

Thank you Maddie and Eric Woodford for singing the national anthem before the start. They did great!

And then ...

they were off!

The early miles took the runners through historic Pill Hill and around Plummer Circle.

Cruising the 13.1 miles through Rochester the fastest was Ben Kamif of Minneapolis.

The Civic Center park is a lovely spot for a race finish.

Tom O'Leary

I chatted with Marie Boyd and Gloria Jansen for a while

Tom and Karen Williamson

The Lappi family

Before we knew it it was time to tear it all down until next year. Thank you to those who stayed for tear-down and clean-up. They're not glorious jobs. And by that time everyone has had enough and just wants to go home and put their feet up. Thank you clean-up crew ... you rock.

When all was said and done (at about 2:30), Jean, Julie and I headed to Beetles for a sandwich, decompression, and a race recap. Then it was off to the couch for me until late afternoon/early evening when I just had to get in a bike ride.

THANK YOU to everyone that volunteered in any way and THANK YOU to everyone that ran!!

Just a little blurb about my day today ... 3 good workouts, including some intervals. Picked 12 pints of raspberries. Yum. They're my favorite. My oatmeal will be extra special in the morning. I noticed on Feedjit that someone arrived on my blog from CNN.com .... hmmm. I can't find a link out there but it is what it is.

Thought for the day: Life is a trial mile by mile. Yard by yard it's not so hard. Life is a cinch inch by inch.

Good night.