Start of something good!

Boy, it sure felt good to be back into the running community. Alaska's largest running event, the Alaska Heart Run, was held yesterday and it was a grand event. About 6,500 runners and walkers participated in the event. Among the participants, and wearing bib #1, was a young boy named Shawn who received a heart transplant in summer 2008. My running the race was meager compared to Shawn's; however, this event marks the start of my official running comeback...hooray!

Marian and I joined Hannah and the other students and families from her school (the Huffman Huskies) who were running the race. We entered the non-timed event, which started 30 minutes after the timed event. Because I was a Mended Heart runner, I got a real cool Alaska Heart Institute cap.

It was amazing watching the real fast runners go by. The winning time was 15:25.5 (mens) and 18:25.8 (women). A few of my friends ran in the timed 5K event....Mark Carr's time was 20:11.3 (finished 55th for men); Ellyn Brown's time was 21:44.0 (finished 22nd for women); and Mark Schroeder's time was around 23:00.

The winning time of the Mended Heart Division was 20:15.3. Hannah tells me that she and her friend Anna ran the 5K in about 30 minutes...WOW! They finished before I did!

After finishing his timed run, my buddy Mark Schroeder (with cheese bagel in hand) joined Marian, Hannah, the Huffman School crowd and I at the start and ran along side me for the entire race. His companionship and encouragement along the way was really appreciated. Marian was running with us as well but we lost her when she stopped to pick up a little child who fell and was in danger of being trampled.

I'm really excited about getting back into running on the road and rubbing elbows with other runners...hopefully they won't run me over as they go by. I hope to train hard and run far real soon. Nike!