Grafton Gazebo 5-Mile Road Race

Here's our Team in Training runners after the Grafton road race. As you can see, a whopping FIVE runners from our team came away with 'bling'. Rick and Lori, our coaches, placed first in their age groups, as did Anna. Caitlin and Fulvio placed in the top three as well! Greg in the top left did not run the road race, but DID bike 40 miles to the race to meet up with us. He is training with his wife for the Ironman, and their Boston Marathon was part of their training regimen!

The Grafton race is a great one to run if you like hills. The course starts uphill on the first mile and the first two include the infamous North Street hill our Team in Training runners ended their training runs on. If you can make it through the first half, the 2nd half is mostly downhill, though there are a few ups there as well.

I had a rough day but managed to run 8:20's. I stopped and walked with a some breathing difficulties, and felt grateful for the runners around me who encouraged me and let me know where I was in the course. At mile 4, the volunteer who was reading times was a whopping three minutes over the actual, and after hearing the dismal read-out and thinking 'man, I am doing poorly today- I should just quit!', a woman with a watch let me know that the time was waaay off. Thank you! And it was great to run that last uphill to the finish line with my teammates cheering me in.

We all enjoyed a great post-race lunch together at the Post Office Pub in Grafton.

The injury is still not resolved- my last visit w/my chiropractor was interesting in that he felt I may have stressed the bone and then rubbed a tendon crossways, which is causing residual pain and tendon thickening. He gave me the go-ahead to run, but said it is an issue of pain that will go away. I hope so!