My First Living History Farms Race

I'm pumped!!! I ran my first "Living History Farms" race today. It's probably the funnest run I've ever done. It's a 7 mile run and the largest Turkey Trot in the United States. There were around 6,800 people who registered to run and I just read that 6,240 people finished the race. The rest of the results aren't posted yet so I don't know if I won or not :-).

Actually I know I didn't. There were hoards of people in front of me and hoards of people behind me. It kinda felt like the Exodus and I bet a guy named Moses won.

Jadon and I finished in 1 hour 10 minutes and 25 seconds. Not bad considering we had to walk for about 5 minutes at the start because it was so packed, and I stopped to go the bathroom in a corn field. There were people from lots of other states and even other countries. We also discovered that dressing up is kinda the thing to do. There were people in santa costumes, indian costums, half-naked, bare foot, with masks, you name it, they were there. Jadon and I layered, but that's it. And really, I'm glad we didn't dress up. At mile 3 I heard a guy in a costume say, "this the point when wearing a costume isn't fun any more"

So the greatest part of the race is the terrain and the route. It's just this random course through the Iowa "wilderness". I slogged through 3 creeks, climbed up hills using a rope, crawled over logs and under trees and pretty much had the time of my life. It was like racing without rules. There wasn't a trail to stay on, there was a course, but even that was up to the runners discretion. Basically it was all open terrain and everyone just wanted to "get there".

I fell pretty hard once and banged my shin up, but other than that I'm no worse from the wear. In fact, I'm probably better andI've got an incredible "runner's high" goin' on - I'm still pumped from running this morning and I'm already anticipating running again next year. I LOVE IT!