Freedom Run

When you wake up on the morning of the 4th of July, what is the first thing that you think of doing? Trying out a few firecrackers to wake the neighborhood up? Thinking about what you'll put on the grill later on in the day? Hitting the snooze, since you probably have the day off of work?

What about getting up and running 9.3 miles? Well, that's what I did this past 4th of July. Earlier in the spring, I looked at some of the local races, and noticed a 4th of July Freedom Run. It starts up one of the local canyons and ends at the park in one of the small towns nearby.

Race time, you ask? 7:00AM sharp. So the 4th found me waking up around 5:00 in the morning, getting on my running outfit, and driving up to the start point. For this particular race, being somewhat small in size, I had to get up there early to get a parking place, since there was no shuttling from the finish line to the start line.

So at 7:00, I lined up with about 575 other runners, the gun sounded, and we were off. It was a somewhat humid morning by our standards out here, so when the sunlight hit, you could almost hear everyone groan. However, about 15 minutes later some cloud cover rolled in, which cooled things off quite a bit.

For this race, the first 7 miles were pretty much downhill. But at mile 7, there was a fairly steep, 1/2 mile incline to climb. I'm proud to say that I did not slow down much, and actually passed several people who had to walk up the hill.

From there, it was a nice, easy run to the finish line. My wife was waiting there with her new camera, and caught a few shots of me as I raced toward the finish line.

I was so happy to see her I even stuck my tongue out at her as a loving sign of affection!

Overall, I ended up #107 out of about 575 people. In my age group, I was the 13th place overall finisher. It was a great run, and I look forward to another freedom run next 4th of July!