Dexter-Ann Arbor Half-Marathon 2009

After a fortifying breakfast of Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage and scrambled eggs, Asia's typical race day breakfast, we left for Dexter. After meeting up with Katie and John, and Katie's best friend Pam, in the parking lot we walked to the school to meet the rest of the team. It was a gorgeous, clear, cool June morning and everyone was ready to run. The team had received their new race singlets the day before, so most of our people were in blue.

Because Asia has a tendency to go out too fast at the beginning, Katie has been working on keeping Asia with her during practice runs. This is not an easy task. It's not so critical on the local runs, but will be very important at the Detroit Marathon in October, when the course carries them across the Ambassador Bridge to Canada and back thru the Windsor Tunnel. Rather than keep calling her back, or urging her on faster, she and Asia decided on a code word that would mean, "Asia, slow down" or Asia speed up a little" depending on the circumstances. The code word was BURRITO. I could only imagine what would go thru the other runners' minds if Katie had to shout out "BURRITO" at the top of her lungs several times on the course!

After some pre-race pictures John took off for his warm-up run and the rest of us made our way to the starting line.

Katie and Asia found their spot in the mass of runners and I made my way to the front, close to the timing mat so I could get an accurate start time on my watch.

There was one wheeler entry this year, but I'm sorry to say I can't find her name. The crowd of runners and spectators sent her off with cheers and applause. There were 2434 runners waiting at the start.

As soon as Katie and Asia crossed the start Jerry and I took off for our car and raced to the 2 mile point. We realized quickly what a difference it made having our team dressed alike. We could look for the distinctive blue singlets and THEN look at the faces. We were able to see, cheer for, and photograph many more of our runners. We spotted Claudio, who looked strong, and incredibly fast. That was the last time we saw him......he beat us to every stop. We saw Rob, Marie, Stephanie, Michael M., Gianna, Eric, Aaron, Rick, Andrea,and many of the others. After Asia and Katie passed us, We made another mad dash for the car and headed for the 5 mile point.

We had brought "chocolate water" (Gu + water) for Asia and an extra water bottle for Katie, even though there were water stations at every 2 mile point along the course. Katie grabbed Asia's water from Jerry and kept on going.......and so did we....on to the 8 mile point.

At mile 8 everyone still looked good....their excellent training paying off! After a quick water bottle handoff, from Katie to me this time, we took off for downtown Ann Arbor and the finish line.

The crowd lining the street was almost impassable. We could see that Andrea and Claudio had already finished but had no idea of their times. Heather caught up with us and filled us in on their amazing finishes. Claudio finished in 1:23:12 and Andrea in 1:34:59.

We finally found a thin spot in the crowd and elbowed our way to the front to watch for our girls. Katie and Asia finished in 1:50:08 and 1:50:09...PR times for that race for both of them!! Katie was thrilled that she didn't have to use the "secret word" once! She said later that she felt they had evolved into a great running team.

We made our way to the team area to wait for John to find us and for pictures with the team and their medals. As we left the group to go have some lunch Jerry and I marveled again at our great good fortune to have found this amazing group of people. They have not only embraced Asia as one of their own, but also accepted us as part of the running family too! And then there's Katie, who has gone beyond being a running partner and become a true friend to Asia (and us).

Thanks to you all in Running Fit 501 for another great season. The short break will be harder for Asia, who misses you all terribly. See you in a couple of weeks!