3 High Fives Virtual 5K

Tall Mom on the Run is hosting a virtual 5K today to raise money Marathon for the Cure, so I got my hiney out of bed at 5 this morning to run. Now, if you've ever set foot in Satanta (or even looked at a map), you know how crazy our streets are. So mapping out a course was a bit of a challenge.

The perimeter of town actually is 5 kilometers (weird, huh?), but no way was I running on the highway in the dark, and I've had a few nasty run-ins with aggressive dogs over by the high school, which makes me want to avoid that stretch of road. (What is it about Satanta and mean dogs?) So I ran the loop around the grade school. (This is where I usually run anyway, especially in the morning. It's close to home and well lit, and I don't have to worry about angry dogs, just Jewell Swift wanting to talk.) I used MapMyRun to verify that the loop actually is half a mile like everyone says it is. This was more difficult than I anticipated because Google Maps doesn't recognize the sidewalk that goes by the softball field and thinks that the blocked-off alley that runs between Edna's and Papa's houses is a street. Anyway, I eventually figured it out, and it really is half a mile around the school. So I ran the loop 6 times, running the length of the front of the school at the end for the extra .1 to make it 5K. My time was 25:46, which isn't great by most standards (especially compared to some of the serious runners doing the virtual race), but for a beginning runner like me, I think it's pretty decent.

Next up...Satanta Day Fun Run.