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Let Freedom Run!

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By marydalene

So you may or may not have heard that I like to run. Well, part of that is that my kids see me train often and race on occasion. Timothy participated in a 3K fun run fundraiser at his school and was excited at the opportunity to be in a race again. We found a race that had a division for both of us and signed up. Timothy ran the 1 mile; I ran the 10K Freedom Run, part of the Freedom Festival for the Fourth of July. (It was on Monday, July 5 this year.)

The original idea was that I would run the 10K and then run with Timothy on his race, but our races were too close together. His started about 10 minutes after mine (sorry, I can’t run a 10K in 10 minutes). But Timothy was excited even though he ran solo, and Jared watched him run his race while I was running mine.

Timothy did great. He finished with a time of 9:56, which put him 17 out of 36 in his age group, and 103 out of 428 overall.

Meanwhile, I was running. I must admit, I didn’t do as well as I wanted to (partly because I gave blood less than a week before — I didn’t realize how much it would impact my performance). But I know when I enter these things I’m not going to win. My personal best is around a 9:30 mile and I was shooting for a 10-minute mile average for my 6.2-mile race. I was doing well until mile 5 when the aide station didn’t have any more cups for water — not good since it was a very muggy day. (That had never happened to me before on a previous race, but this race seemed to be more casual. Lesson learned. I’ll bring my own race water if I run this one again.)

I finished with a time of 1:09:49, which put me at 1,059 out of 1,273 runners. I finished 115 out of 147 in my age group. I’ve had better personal records for six miles on my casual runs up the canyon, but I ran it and it was fun (if muggy and crowded), and I got an awesome T-shirt from it. (It fits well, which I can’t say of all the running shirts I’ve gotten this year.)

Jared sort of missed me coming up to the finish line. It’s all good.

And if you’re wondering where my finisher medal is, my daughter claimed possession of it — at least while we were taking pictures. It was what made her happy, so it was fine with me.

Ah, you say, but it is here now. Why is that? Because I tempted my daughter with my sunglasses instead. She was stylin’ and that’s all that matters.

In all seriousness, I am grateful that I live in a country with such tremendous freedoms. And that I can help celebrate those by doing something I love — running — and spending time with friends and family is just awesome. I am one very blessed girl.

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