A Great Race and Heading Back to Amazon

Location: Avon Park, FL (High 88, Low 65)

(Thanks to Dee (Tumbleweed) for taking all of the photos in today’s blog.)

A few weeks ago, our next door neighbor Dee sent us a flyer about a 3.74 mile race around the Sebring International Raceway. It sounded like a great race to add to our list for the year, so we signed up, along with Dee’s husband Jim. Dee came along to be our official cheerleader and photographer.

It was nice to be relatively close to the race location, so we were able to leave a little after 6. Much better than the 4:45 am start to travel to the Key West half a couple months ago. When we arrived at the track it was still dark, and we were able to watch the sunrise.

 

 

Here are the three of us waiting for the start of the race!

 

Being a “shorter” race, I felt like I could push myself beyond the pace I usually go for in a running event. I felt good as I kept my eye on my watch to see that I was maintaining a high ten and low eleven minute mile.

 

 

Dee got some great shots of us coming in. Here comes Harry! (31:40)

 

 

And here I come! (39:44) I pushed really hard at the end to come in under 40 minutes and was so excited that I made it.

 

 

Like I said, I felt really good about my pace throughout the race. Even so, it was a complete shock to me to look at the list of finalists to see that I had finished 3rd in my age group! Also, Harry just missed placing in his age group with a 4th place finish! Jim also had a great day as he beat his personal goal. Now we all have numbers to beat next year.

 

Amazon update: This morning we received our emails with our offer of employment for the 2015 peak season. They have changed the process a bit this year as they are not interviewing returners. So that made the hiring process a bit easier. We are now signed up for our third peak season. We expect to start the first week of September this year. But I hope it doesn’t come too fast!