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| Click on the Spud to Sign Up for 2020 |
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| I've had this little meme for years! My tiny potato always cheers me on! |
Today was probably the most peaceful race I ever have on my calendar, the Spud Run. It takes place in a small town called Hastings, between Palatka and St. Augustine. Full of flat fields, resplendant with crops of cabbage and potatoes, freshly turned earth, and manure. Lovely!
I dropped Hubby off at work by 6:30 and made it to Hastings in just over an hour. It was already very busy, and I had to park way off to the side of the Community Center. The race doesn't start until 8:30... why was it so busy?
I picked up my packet and goody bag, used the (real) bathroom and got two bags of potatoes (I skipped cabbage this year), then headed back to my car.
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| Freshly harvested, still dirty |
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| Random swag - magnets, visor, magnet picker-upper thing, pencil, snacks |
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| Awesome shirt, but I'm so bummed that something stained it (my fault, not theirs) |
As I'm chilling in the car, I keep seeing racers coming in... um, what? Oh, yeah. This year they had a 10k race too. It's the 10k racers coming in.
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| Nice size crowd this year |
Around 8am, I started seeing lots of folks heading up to the start area, and it had me second-guessing myself. Was the race at 8am? Will I be late? I decided to head up there at 8am. Nope, still starting at 8:30. Thanks, anxiety. I stuck around to cheer on the 10k finishers at the finish line.
I headed back over to the start line around 8:20am.
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| Why is my hat so crooked? I look derpy |
Many of the runners were participating in the 10k+5k challenge - they already did the 10k, and will now do the 5k back to back.
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| All ready to go! |
I love small races, even though it means I'll naturally be one of the slowest... They are just so much more relaxed, so much less stressful. Plus, the view!
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| Just breathe... it smells like home |
Sure, most people can't (don't) appreciate Farm Life, but I love it. Wide open roads. The smell of turned fields. The hospitality of the people. I love it.
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| Huge fields on both sides of the road |
With only about 200 or so runners, it was never busy, and after the first mile, it thinned out even more.
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| Fields on the right; homes on the left (some with horses) |
Around Mile 2, there was a bandit on the course! This adorable kitty was cheering us on, and even walking along side many of us until it got a little too far from home, and then it would come back to his fence.
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| Excuse me, Mr. Mittens - where is your bib? |
By Mile 3, I was still feelin' good. It was warm (I think it was 75ยบ by the time I got back to the car), but not oppressively so.
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| Almost there! The finish is at the end of this road |
I
finished and got my adorable potato medal!
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| Yay! It's a tiny potato! |
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| And I did the thing! |
My official time was
53:57 (pace 17:22), finishing 18/20 in my age group, and 232nd out of 256 overall.
I headed back to the car to grab my change of clothes and decided to douse my head with the remnants of the water in my Nathan... and then realized that my hair started smelling like Glacier Freeze Gatorade... well, crap. Luckily, I still had the bottle of water they gave me at the finish line, so I rinsed out the Gatorade with that, and was able to avoid having blue hair!
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| No blue hair here |
Once I was in non-sweaty clothes, I headed out to St. Augustine for the day! Can't wait to do this one again next year!
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| A very large, very bumpy Russet potato, I think |
