This Week of Running

Well another week of running has come and gone. This week was actually a bit of a down week with the culmination of the Balloon Fest 10K. I really hate doing races when I am doing them, but when they are over I love them. I am sure many feel the same way.

Today was a beautiful day, and it was great watching all of the balloons take off. WOW! They were so pretty. The temperature was good and the wind was calm and Rich and Patrizia did a wonderful job. Honestly I am amazed at what a great race this was.

There was one little glich, it seems my chip did not accurately record my time. I know, I know, you all are saying "yeah right", but it is true. I ran with my friend Amy for the entire race...no one between us. She came in at 54:16 and I was seconds behind her (yes she kicked by butt at the end), I had 54:20. There was no one between us it was really a race between the two of us except that she was too far out for me to catch. Terry came in over a minute behind me (one of his best times though, he did great). When we got the official results there was a woman in my age group between Amy's time and then it had mine at 55:20 ish or something. So in those results she was between me and Amy. And yet there was no one between me and Amy, and I remember passing this woman. And it also showed Terry coming in before me when he was a minute behind me, so who knows what happened.

At first it really bugged me and as you can tell I am posting my REAL time here, but in reality there are flaws in everything and it got me to thinking. This was chip timing and it still had flaws. The many times we have done races as a running club using Terry P's software or doing it by hand and we still have not had too many mess ups, one here and there, but still about the same as this chip system. I think we have done pretty well.

It amazing how much we are growing and indeed it is time to have chip timing for the bigger races...it must make it so much easier on the race directors and I know it does on the volunteers who usually get sucked into doing the timing! So if anyone knows of anyone who may be interested in donating some money for chip timing for the Thanksgiving Turkey Trott...let the club know!

To close - it was a good 10K, thanks to everyone who worked the race, as always you are appreciated by those of us who run.