I was a little bit disappointed that Science Bowl fell on the same morning as the Ripon Almond Blossom Festival 8k run. 8k is about 5 miles which I have been running quite comfortably the past few weeks. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to reenter the world of running in a crowd. I'm not nearly as steady as I used to be (with my left leg kind of tracking in odd directions at times and every so often even scraping against my right ankle as I run) so I thought this would be a good test of whether I could handle running in a crowd of people.
I decided the night before that if it was sunny in the morning (they were predicting rain), I would run. Well, I woke up to dry ground, so I dropped Anthony off at Science Bowl at 7:30 and drove off to Ripon for the 9:00 run. I set my goal for 38 minutes for the run since I had been consistently running 7:40 miles in my recent runs at home, and off I went. I felt really good that morning from the start and really had no difficulties with other runners (Yeah!). I was excited to meet my goal, completing the race in 37 minutes 41 seconds. I finished 48th overall out of 386 runners. What a great feeling to be involved in such a thing once again.
I also had the pleasure of bumping into Mike Schoonover from Modesto church. I had been wanting to talk with him sometime soon knowing that he was a runner and had experienced a stroke himself about 6 years ago. He flagged me down before the race and we had a good talk. He is back to running marathons again after taking a year off from running after his stroke. I think that his situation was quite different than mine and it doesn't sound like he had the leg problems that I have had, but it was so good to hear about his recovery and return to running.
Another unexpected pleasure was running with one of the kids from my Sunday school class. We didn't plan it this way, but our paces were almost identical and I saw him for most of the race. I even passed him for a moment at the 2.5 mile water station (I went without), but he quickly passed me again and took his position in front of me once again. I never was able to catch him. This was his first time ever running the 8k and he did a fabulous job. You'll see him a few places ahead of me on the results page.
Well, I finished the race, hopped in my vehicle and drove back to Modesto to take in the rest of the science bowl competition. Anthony's team had great success, winning 3 of their 5 morning rounds, taking 1 of 2 spots in a lunchtime 4 team tie breaker event and making it through the first 3 rounds of the afternoon double elimination tournament between the top 8 of the 24 teams competing that day. That is the farthest an Enochs team has ever gone in their 3 years of existence and they are looking forward to doing even more next year.
It was a fabulous day!
Thanks again for all of your love and prayers. God is so good!
