Dam to Dam

The Dam to Dam 20K race was held in Des Moines on June 1, 2013, and I was very excited.  I watched the weather forecast constantly, and I worried over every little detail of what I'd wear and what I'd carry.

Gary, Luke, Maya, and I traveled to Des Moines that Thursday.  On Friday Gary and I drove the route and it was a bit scary how long it was!  We took a picture from the starting point on the Sailorville dam and could just make out the Prudential building downtown where the race would end.  I circled it in red in the picture.  Whoa!

I met up with Kristi and her husband at the packet pickup.  She switched to the 5K since her knee was injured through most of the spring.  We had dinner that night, and it was really a good time.  A perfect way to relax and keep me from freaking out too much before the race!

Gary took me to the bus pick-up location very early in the morning, and from there I rode a school bus to the starting location.  There were so many thousands of people, I didn't really know where to go.  I hit the porta potty and then lined up near the back.  When I checked the gun time against my chip time, it took about 12 minutes for me to cross the start line!

The weather was perfect and it was a really nice race route.  Gary, Luke, Billy, and Maya were waiting for me at about 7.5 miles.  Maya immediately jumped up to greet me.

Miles 8-11 were getting tough so I ended up taking some walk breaks.  When we came across the pedestrian bridge near the end, I had a grin across my face the whole time.  At the end of the bridge there was a band playing and the lead singer kept singing over and over again a refrain that ended with "only one more mile to go!"  The picture was taken at that point.

 It was really emotional crossing the finish line.  Here are pics of me with Maya and my medal.  My finish time was 2:33:47, 12:22 pace.

Luke ran in the 800m youth run in the 10-12 year old age group and he took 3rd place after 2 tall girls.  He was first in the boys.  He got a really nice Brooks bag filled with socks and a visor and other little gifts.