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Steve, Cathy, and Nicholas -- Steve and Nicholas win medals at the 5K race -- (created 2011-10-22, updated 2011-11-03) |
Nicholas and Steve ran in a 5K race on Saturday, October 22: Strutting for the Streaks. This race was sponsored by the Blue Valley Recreation Center to benefit their Special Olympics team. The race had awards in various age categories. Nick and Steve both won awards in their respective age categories.
Here's a picture of Nick at the starting line of the race. They asked all the fast runners to move to the front and nobody did. They were all too modest, I think.
Nick finished the race in 29 minutes and 2 seconds. That was good enough for third in the 0-14 year old male age category. He's only 9 and was faster than any other 9 year olds. [Actually, I just looked at the official results and Nick finished behind an 8 year old and 13 year old boy.] There was a 9 year old girl who finished just a few seconds behind him (and first in the 0-14 year old females category). One of Nick's soccer teammates, also 9, finished just a minute behind Nick at 30 minutes.
Nick said that all his leg muscles hurt after the race. This is hardly surprising since he never runs long distances except at events like this one. If he trained at it, he could be quite a runner.
Steve finished much later at 39 minutes, but that was a personal best for him and met his goal of running a 5K in under 40 minutes before the end of the year. Like his earlier races in May and in September, he got caught up in the flow at the beginning and ran faster than his normal pace. His first kilometer was 7 minutes and his second was 8 minutes. It was hard to keep up that pace, but a surge during the last half kilometer made up for any lost time. I have a map of the route on my running log.
Here's a picture of the finish line that I took right before I crossed it.
Steve's time was also good enough to take first in his age category (55-59 year old males). Now at the previous 5K race, Steve's 41 minute finish placed him at dead last among the 23 people in his age group, so a first place showing here doesn't prove a lot. Perhaps all of the competition was sleeping late after the Friday night Lawrence Welk TV marathon. [Again, looking at the official results, I am first probably because there were only two people in my age category. There were four men in the 60-64 year category who finished much earlier than me, as well as a couple of men in the 65-69 year category. I won't mention the 57, 63, and 65 year old women who finished ahead of me. Across all categories, I finished 115 out of 144.]
Here's a picture of the victorious team at home after the race. Notice the two medals around our necks. Steve is wearing the shirt he got from the first 5K race he ran.
What now?
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