This is not a great picture but it is the only one I have from today’s race.  Today I ran a 1/4 marathon with my daughter, I love when my daughter races with me and it has been a while since we have done one together.

A little about the race course – The finish line was at home plate at our local minor league baseball stadium so the last bit of the race we got to lap the outfield and finish at home plate, that was a lot of fun.  Oh and another great thing about this race because it started and ended at the stadium there were actual bathrooms and not PoP…woot!  The course was almost completely flat, one small hill, and most of it was through our downtown area, lots to look at and talk about.  Not much of a crowd presence on the course, and entertainment and such was limited, which I found I really did not mind.  At one point on the course we were running through a neighborhood and one man was outside with about five kids, they had bubbles and were cheering us on as we went by, that was really cute.

Today was an amazing race!  Not because I PR’d or I won a place for my age, but because my daughter and I ran together and had a lot of fun doing it!  We kept our pace for the first five miles of the race, the last mile and a half of our 1/4 course was also the end of the 1/2 so we slowed down a bit and enjoyed watching some of the fast 1/2 runners whiz by us, we do not often (and by often I mean never) get to run with the fast folks.  We kept a good pace this last stretch just a little slower than the rest of the race.

Because our quarter course was the same as the half course for 6 or so miles we did not have to maintain a fast pace, which made it nice.  Do not get me wrong I like to compete and always strive to push myself each race, but daughter time is important too.

So, today was an amazing race, I felt so great afterwards, all that worry about my back, and thankfully no issues. If I had endless funds I think all of my training runs would be local races of different lengths, I love the inspiration of the elite runners, and the crowds, and the fun of having the other runners around.

Next week we have a 15K in Lexington, that one will have a LOT more hills, but looking forward to running with my daughter again.

Until Tomorrow…