I improved!!!
Yup. If last year was the Hike to the Shrine, this year was the Run/Hike to the Shrine. So I definitely did better. Six minutes better than last year, in fact! Last year, I mostly hiked in the Run To The Shrine 5K in 47 minutes. This year, I ran/hiked in 41 minutes and 21 seconds. So I was pumped!
That’s not to say the race wasn’t tough – it definitely was! (We were running from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo up to the Will Rogers Shrine!) But the entire day was a lot of fun, because I was there with friends!
Here are a couple of pics from the starting line:
And then we were off! My good friend Diana Dreman, Miss Colorado 2011 ran in the race to show her support for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo! She even ran in her crown! That got a lot of smiles.
One of the best parts about this race is the view. You just can’t beat it. Here’s a pic about half-way up the mountain.
And can I just say – how impressed I am with my friends. They’re fast! (Meteorologist Branden Borremans finished the 5K in 33 minutes! My friend Torie finished the 10K in 1hr 10mins!) I’m not that quick. So since I ran/hiked… I got some fun pics of my friends as they ran by me on their way DOWN the hill. Here's my friend Patrick. And the next shot is Russ & Diana in her crown!
The race basically plays out like this: 2 miles uphill, 1 downhill. And that downhill is just… awesome. You can really open up and let gravity assist! So I just tried to enjoy that… before the finish line!!!
As much as I loved the downhill… actually finishing the race was the best part. And what made it even better? Since my friends are so fast, they were all there to greet me at the finish line!
I’m really looking forward to next year already. I’m going to improve on my time again! And I’ll do it by actually RUNNING to the Shrine.
