Running Notes by HJL

Emily and I did the Palo Alto Moonlight Run again this year. Once again, we lined up at the front of the untimed 5k walk/run and ran the course. She was thinking about doing the regular 5k run this year, but it doesn’t start until 8:45pm and we wanted to get home in time for a full night’s sleep before soccer at 9:30am on Saturday morning.

It was overcast in the evening, and actually turned into a “hard drizzle” at around 7:00pm. I got a free frisbee from one of the booths and used it to keep the rain off for a while. It pretty much cleared up by around 7:30pm. The 5k walk/run started at 7:15pm, so we didn’t get too wet.

Other than helping find a path around the baby strollers at the start area, I pretty much just follow whatever pace Emily wants to go at. They’re apparently doing 1-mile runs at her middle school, it sounds like her paces have been around 8:15 to 8:30. She’s gotten a lot faster than last year. We finished the 5k loop in 29:20, compared with last year’s 39:55 (got stuck behind the pack of walkers), and 2005’s 36:50. We passed the other runners (mostly other kids with parents) and finished first, well ahead of the pack of walkers.

When we finished, we headed for the post-run snacks. The woman at the table was doing a good job chasing away people who were trying to get a headstart on coffee cake, telling them that it was only for after the race. We explained that we had already finished running the 5k walk/run, and Emily looked sufficiently sweaty and indignant that she might not get her snacks after finishing 1st that we didn’t have any further questions. We always like the Hobee’s coffee cake after a good run.

mile 1 8:59 8:59
mile 2 9:45 18:44 (stoped at water station just before marker)
finish 3.1 10:36 29:20