And On She Runs...

Sunday morning (why are these always Sunday mornings at ungodly times?), Sarah participated in her fourth Girls On The Run 5K race. To the organizers' credit, the course was flatter, and by doing it in mid-November, the weather was nicer--it was 54 degrees at race time, or a good 25 degrees warmer than last year's Reindeer Romp in December.

First, the important stuff: once again, Sarah completed the entire race without walking (although given the crowds one could be forgiven for thinking we had slowed to a walk once or twice).  She finished in a time of 37:23, which was good for 813th place out of the 2,800 girls who ran, putting her in the top 30% of finishers.  She was also in the top third of finishers from Silverbrook--which managed to have a girl finish fifth overall, too!

To be open about it, though, this was not one of her best races.  Of the three we have times for, this was her slowest time, a good five minutes off her spring time.  In terms of percentiles, she finished better than her first race ever, but not as good as this spring.  I think part of it had to do with the course design and race-day management, which seemed to bunch up people in key places (there were two turnarounds, one in a narrow alleyway--who thinks to put 5,600 runners through that and expect seamless movement?).  The middle of the race, she did slow to a powerwalk kind of pace, immediately after cresting the high-point hill on the race, and she did have two equipment failures--twice having to stop for shoelaces.

I can also go into an extended rant, if you like, about the (lack of) wisdom in holding this event at Jiffy Lube Live, a venue already famous for its inability to manage traffic well; on departing, it took us 90 minutes to get out of the parking lot, with the first 45 minutes not. Moving. An. Inch.

But this is about Sarah, and celebrating her tremendous stamina and stick-to-it-iveness that has seen her through four 5Ks now (plus the warmup races...so she's run 40km now!) since third grade.  She wore her "Daddy's Girl" bracelet in the race, and as has become her tradition, once she saw the finish line up ahead, she dashed off in a sprint, leaving Daddy puffing behind and shouting encouragement at her, that fantastic, flying Running Girl of mine.

But this year's time had another reason to be slow: a daughter's love.  She got within ten feet of the finish line, and stopped, turned around, and waited a few seconds for her old man to catch up, so she could hold my hand as we crossed the finish line together.  Would she have set a personal best but for that?  Nah.  But in that moment, neither of us cared for the seconds ticking by, but rather for the eternity of that memory and a shared race together.