we are one inside these walls

Last night, my running club had it's annual awards night. It's a nice night, a good chance to see what people look like in real clothes and eat things that are not bagels and bananas. People really cleaned up nicely. 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the club. Pretty impressive!!!

We give out several awards. We have a points competition for different age groups, new comer of the year, most improved, Triton of the year (our triathlon team), cyclist of the year, middle distance runner (for people who race mostly under 10k), long distance runner (over 10k), life time achievement, volunteer, and Front Runner of the year. It's a lot, it makes for a long night. I won my age group for the 3rd time mostly by just racing a lot. I think this will be the last time as I am in the twilight of my 30s and these up and comers are FAST. It's going to be a tight age group in 2009. 

Several of our awards are named for people who have done great things for and with the club over the years. This year, we renamed he distance runner award after Sue Foster. Sue ran the faster NYC Marathon ever run by a woman in the club. She ran a 3:05 and she ran it in 1980. She was 24 at the time and was the 42nd female over all. Oh how times have changed! She's been in the club pretty much since the start. Sue's a great person and I am so happy she is being honored like this.

I am also honored to have won the award for 2008. It was great to win this and have Sue there.

I wasn't the only one in this house to come home with hardware. Loren won middle distance runner of the year. I think we've reached a new level of ridiculous coupledom.

It was a late night. And Friday was a late night. Luckily, Loren and I live a half a block from where dinner was. I still didn't get to bed until almost 1. On tap for today was 17 miles. I was really not looking forward to it on 2 nights of not enough sleep.

One good thing is it was actually above freezing when I left the house. I dont remember the last time that happened. My friend Jen joined me for most of the run. That was so helpful, the 12 miles we ran together flew by. It was more of an I'm tired hard than a this is hard hard. I'm glad it's over with. I averaged 9:42 pace. I'm fine with that for the day. Since I was tired going into it, I knew it was just going to be about getting it done.

Now for a wee nap perhaps, before we start the football festivities.