A couple of pic's from the Deception pass dash. Todd and I made the run in a boat I built from an old Russian frame I got from some friends. we had Christmas lights and well the balls were blue by the time we got back. Luckily we were the only boat in our class, so we got first and last at the same time.

It was a very good workout around 6 miles with 1/4 of it against some fair current. The race is set up so the faster you are the less current you have to fight. They base the ratings on the boats length to width, a slow sea kayak is around 9:1. I worked it out for our boat it hit just over 6.5:1, yes we worked way too hard.

Our time was 1:18 minutes about at the speed I run.

This was Turkey day. My first running race ever, have to say I had a blast. Was a bit nervous never having ran with other people before. It was interesting trying to bob and weave through the crowd, took my time and did not plow into anyone :) Once out of the start and up the first hill it started to thin out a bit. I noticed who was going the same speed and found a couple with a stroller to keep pace with. 

After about a mile or so legs loosened up and I started to pick people off, till I found the next marker for me.    

A couple of young ladies half my age, stayed with them till a little bit of a up hill. Held my pace till we got to the bottom of the down hill. ( note it was 2 miles down hill then 1 mile up hill to the finish) 

This is where I went after the guys that were my size that had been close to all the way. I knew I wanted to keep a steady pace and not blow up on the hill. So I did my down shift into low gear and started chugging, slowly the big guys started to crash and pull over to walk. I tried to keep the breath steady, man that hill was working me. About half way up all these people started to pass me, held my pace then realized it was the teammates of the people that were crashing getting on with their race.

I am getting near the top of the hill, lungs are bursting and legs are going WTF are we doing. When I start to get passed by all these little kids, I mean they were flying by me. Good thing it did not bother me too much, I got over that as I have been passed by lots of 3' tall munchkins ripping it up on the ski slopes, same thing. Later figured it out they were running the 1 mile course that fed into the 5k near the end.

Ok made the hill down into the parking lot for the finish. No one is going any faster than they were up the hill, screw this. I open it up as much as I had left, bet I passed 25 people in the last 150'.  Ran through the finish without killing anyone, walked out the back side till I caught my breath. Hunny and the friends that came to cheer found me. It was awesome to see the smiles on their faces, they were so happy for me which made me very happy as well.  

My first race was just too much fun. Yeppers there are more on the way.