Today was race day.

To be honest, I was afraid of this race.  I’ve never raced just one mile before.  I usually race marathons and further.  I like to be able to take my time a little bit and get warmed up…enjoy the scenery along the way. With a one mile race, there is not time to dawdle.  The say, “Go” and you run for all you’re worth until you cross the finish line.

It hurts!

I carpooled up to Tupelo, Mississippi, with a couple of my Mississippi running friends.  We have a lovely drive.  Took our time.

We encountered some very heavy rain while heading north to Tupelo and had to slow down quite a bit.  People were pulled over to the side of the road but we just kept on moving.  We had a race to get to!

We arrived at the race around 6:35 and registered.  It was race day only registration.  Most people had already filled out their paperwork and brought it with them.  We had not so we stood there and filled out the necessary forms and checked the box that said we promised not to to sue them if we died or broke a leg during their event.  After that, we decided to walk the mile to the race start.

The race was supposed to start at 7:30 so we had the time to kill.

It was pouring in Tupelo this morning!  Holy cow but it was raining!!!  We were soaked!  HA!

As we were taking out own sweet time walking down the road (it was 6:55 by now), the Race Director pulled up next to us in his pickup truck.  The tail gate was down and he hollered at us, “Hop on!”

We hopped on the back of the very wet tailgate and he stomped on the gas.  We were trying not to slide off the back!  We also passed four Tupelo police cars riding like that.  Here were 4 of us women sitting on the tailgate, while a man was speeding down the road.  The police didn’t seem to find anything strange about that in the least.

The race director reached the starting line and stopped the truck.  He leaned out the window and told us to hop off.  So, we did.

As we joined the other runners at the starting line as the race director yelled out of his truck window, “Ready.  Set.  Go!”

We started running for all we were worth!!! Hahaha!!!  It sure was a good thing he picked us up or we would have missed the race!

I placed 2nd in my Age Group (50-59) and received a nice trophy for my efforts.  Everybody in my carpool placed!  YAY, us!!!

All in all a very wet and very successful racing day.