Grandview Triangle 2 mile fun run

I live in little Grandview, MO.  A suburb of KCMO.  For several years the school system has put on the Grandview Triangle fun run in an effort to get kids and families moving.  Why they named it after a known traffic nightmare is mystery to me, but that's beside the subject.

Even though I've lived here for 13 years this is the first time I have participated.  I don't know exactly when it started but I'm sure I've had at least 10 opportunities.  Most of the time I was too fat and too out of shape to even consider it.  Not the excuses I used.  I was always busy or the weather was bad.  Once I started getting into shape I still didn't.  No real reasons for that.  Wasn't going to this year either.

Except...

A few weeks ago I asked my friend Angie to join me in the Plaza 10k.  She's recently (8 months or so) been working out and I thought she might enjoy it.  She was unsure but I told her we would could do the 2 mile run and that we would start walking our neighborhood.  That's a 2 mile loop.  We did that a few times and she saw that she could so she got very enthusiastic.  So much so that she decided to do the Triangle today - the day before the Plaza one.  Her enthusiasm was catching and Dan & I ended up joining her and Darrell.  Besides, the price was right.  $5 to enter and an extra $5 if you wanted a shirt.  There were options for 1 mile, 2 miles and 4 miles.  I signed up for 2 and signed Dan up for 4.  Angie and Darrell signed up for 2.  This was to be their very first race event.

This morning the weather was wet and yucky and a bit chilled.  I felt ok with a compression shirt on under my t-shirt.  Dan borrowed my hoodie from the gym because he gets extra whiny in the cold (and he doesn't have compression shirts)  I planned to walk, so I wasn't worried about having layers I could take off when I heated up.  It was easy to see that Darrell wanted to do the 4mile race, but since he had never been in an event or gone that distance he needed a bit of a push.  Everyone gave him encouragement and in the end he did switch.  It's a pretty relaxed event so it wasn't a big deal.  In the end Darrell had a good time.  He and Dan both had 10min mile pace and ended up beating Angie and I back even though we only did 2 miles.

This race taught me more about position that I had ever learned.  It's never been an issue.  I am slow.  I line up in back so I won't get in the way or get run over.  I come in last all the time but I don't mind, I still have fun.  But this is a fun run/walk with no elements of competition and lots and lots and lots of people were slower than me.  That proved to be frustrating.  Angie and I walk between 16 min and 18 min a mile.  We ended up in a pack of people who walk a 30 min mile.  Because the road itself had a lot of traffic we didn't see a way around the slower people until the 1/2 mile mark where many of them turned around.  So it took us 15 min to get to that point and 26 min to do the rest.  We put out some effort for that part.

Especially when you consider the hills.  The 1/2 mile marker is close to the crest of a small hill.  Small on one side, steep, steep, steep on the other.  We got to the top of that, looked at each other and said "Oh, this is not going to be fun coming back up!"  Then down we went.    We were right - coming back up wasn't exactly fun, but I found I cold be faster on hills than I thought when properly motivated.  In this case I had two forms of motivation.  1.  Angie who is faster than I am and I try to keep up and 2.  The desire to make up some lost time.

In the end we had a 20min mile pace.  That's not hugely off our normal pace but enough to really frustrate me.  At least until I gave it some serious thought.  It really wasn't that long ago that I could barely go up my own hill. The 1 mile trip to Quik Trip was exhausting and took 45 min easily.  Now I can do that without thinking about it.  Tomorrow I have 7 miles planned out.  The 2 mile event in the morning and a 5 mile workout in the evening.  I am likely to be sore afterwards, but I will manage it.  Never in a million years could I have done that when I weighed over 350!  So given all that- I'll take a 20 min per mile pace any day!