What a difference a year makes? Or not. I know that's so 1990. Oh well. Finally, I placed in my age group! Last year, at the Iron Girl Denver I placed 4th in my age group. Guess what? You don't get anything for fourth place. My goal this year...to place 3rd...thus getting some of the bootie. Well...in a time of 37:15 (or an average of 7:27 per mile - but who is counting?) I managed to place 2nd in my age group!

Did I have fun? Not exactly. It was really hot that day, and for some reason, when you push your body to it's max, it really hurts. Go figure. I felt like I was going to die the entire time. I also made the mistake of wearing my I-pod. I thought it would help for motivation, but it threw me off. I had it too loud, and I couldn't hear my footsteps, so it was hard to get into a groove with my pacing. I actually found it more annoying than motivating. The entire time I was running I kept asking myself "why do I do this?" I hate running races. But oh how I love to finish. When I crossed the line, I had beaten my goal time of 38:00 by a full :45 seconds. I was hoping it was good enough to place. The third place finisher was only six seconds behind me so it was pretty close.

The bootie was good too. I got a sterling silver bracelet that says Iron Girl on it. It's pretty cute. I also got a free pair of RYKA shoes. When I finished the race I told myself that I'd never do another one. Well...one month later I'm already checking the running pages for something else. I'm considering doing the Bergen Peak trail race. It's 11.6 miles, and half of those are straight up. I've been running a portion of it for the last few weeks and I actually kind of enjoy the pain. We'll see how it goes. More later.