Palo Alto Moonlight Run

The K-State game is on hiatus due to lightning so I thought I'd take the time I'd being watching football to work on a few posts.

We decided a week or so ago that we should run in the Palo Alto Moonlight Run this year. I managed to get Kevin and Moria to agree to it even though we didn't exactly have a lot of time to train. I was a little nervous since I'd only been running sporadically over the last few months but we wanted to give it a shot anyway.


We ran into a few other friends who entered the race as well and it was fun to hang out before the race started. Our friend Brett who is a serious runner did the 10k and ended up winning the whole thing. His final time was 34:46...a 5:35 pace!!!The rest of us stuck with the 5k.

The start of the race was a madhouse. It was a mass of people funneling into a small opening to the baylands trail. After getting past the first 400 meters it was little less insane.

It was pretty dark out there. Luckily there were a few headlamps scattered throughout and we all had glow bracelets so it wasn't a hazard or anything. I was actually feeling pretty good during the run and it felt great to race again. I found a guy in a white bandanna that I tried to keep pace with. It helped me to keep pushing at the end of the 2nd mile. I tried to pick it up a little in the last mile and I had enough to pass white bandanna guy in the end. My goal was to beat 25 minutes and I was pleased to finish in 24:44. I just found out I was 9th in the 20-29 year old female division so I was excited about that.
Brian did a good job of getting us all at the finish. I don't think Kevin was as happy with his time as I was, but now we have a starting point and we'll just have to run another one in the future.
Kevin and Luke enjoying free food after the race.

This was Moria's first 5k and I was very excited to run it with her.
Whitney, Kendra, me, and Moria.
This was Palo Alto's 26th annual moonlight run. They had record registration this year with 3500 participants in all three events (5k walk, 5k run, and 10k run). I'm so happy we did it and I truly look forward to the next race. Luckily there are tons of races in the bay area so it shouldn't be too hard to find one close by.