Run With The Heroes: A Story in Photos

Alarm at 6:15 on a Sunday morning. This is a bad joke, right?!

But one can hardly feel good about blowing off an opportunity to run with cops, firefighters, EMTs, and sheriffs’ departments TO RAISE MONEY FOR SPECIAL OLYMPICS. So I got up. Grudgingly. And once I’d eaten half a Larabar (peanut butter cookie flavor… ridiculously good) and some ground turkey, I was feeling a little more chipper.

Here we are, in our obligatory, pre-race self-portrait:

I wore my CrossFit Women shirt to represent:
And Dave wore his traditional orange so I could find him in a crowd:

Just as Dave was about to take my picture, we heard the announcer… the same annoying, crappy announcer we heard at every running race we did last summer. Who is this guy? And why does he have a monopoly on MCing Austin’s races?

This is me, reacting to his voice:

Most of the cops wore shirts that identified them with their groups: yellow for Austin PD Running Team, white for Round Rock PD (“Run with us, not from us”), dark blue for the Sheriff’s department.

But then there was this guy:
Robocop? Supercop? I don’t know… but props to him for full-body spandex in 80+ degrees.

It was a gorgeous morning and while the course — 5k of tarmac winding through megamall-burbs — was my least favorite kind of run, the reasons to be out there were compelling. As the sun bounced off the black under my feet and sweat ran off me in rivers, I thought about Amy Donovan, who died in the line of duty, and all the kids who will compete in the Special Olympics this year. Hard to whine, even internally, with that to think about.

My goal for this race was to just run it without killing myself and see where my time sorted out. Not too bad: 28:49… which is 9:16 per mile. Now I’m flopping on the bed with my book: Careless in Red by Elizabeth George — this “hero runner” needs some down time.

Congratulations to Dave who had a new PR today — and ate his first official Zone breakfast post-race. That’s my superhero husband, y’all.