Morgan Hill — I am not a runner. Let’s get that out of the way first. I have no desire whatsoever to move my legs quickly for fun. Hiking, yes – running, no. Carrying 30 extra pounds around doesn’t help either.
But when the opportunity arose to run in the 29th annual Wildflower Run on Sunday at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, I decided to give it a shot. How hard could be it, right? After all, I’ve done the occasional 3-mile jaunt – on a treadmill of course. And I’ve done it in about half-hour, so I thought I should be fine to run in my first race without running too many people over.
I had to Google what the “K” meant after the race designation to make sure I knew what I was getting into and the British weren’t pulling a fast one on me. OK, so it’s a kilometer, which is less than a mile. Good. So a 5K equals 3.1 miles and a 10K is 6.2 miles.
I joined colleagues Lindsay Weaver and Lora Schraft and her husband in the race. Lindsay and I were in the same 5K race. But she wasn’t able to get her husband Josh to compete, since not all entrants received a medal and he didn’t want to be embarrassed. Lora and her husband Ross are actually training for a half marathon –13.1 miles – so this was a mere tune-up for them.
Lindsay, who ran in college, said she was in it to win and actually did quite well, finishing second in her age group, and way ahead of me.
My goal was to finish. OK, at one time I entertained ideas of finishing under 30 minutes. A lofty goal, but just out of reach. I’ll blame my 34-minute finish on the head wind blowing in. One runner remarked that his legs were already cold just as the race was starting.
Not many runners had short-sleeve T-shirts during the cold morning, and many tried to stay warm by downing a shot of coffee before hand. The coffee table was a popular stop and quickly ran out.
The event, which raises money for scholarships women and girls, was well attended and well organized. Despite the temperate hovering around 50 degrees and wind gust of 20 mph, participants seemed to enjoy the race, or as much as you can enjoy a race.
For me I was just trying to make sure I didn’t trip over a speed bump in the Live Oak parking lot or step in one of the many puddles on the side of the road from the rain the night before.
After running the first mile in about 9 minutes, I kept waiting for that extra burst of speed to kick in. But it never did. Visions of the Jamba Juice smoothies that were given out at the end of the race kept me going. I think about 20 people passed me in the final half-mile.
Volunteers along the way offered words of encouragement and friendly smiles. Yeah, easy for you to smile, you aren’t running a race. But in the process I gained a new appreciation for those who run – now I’m going to go soak my legs.
