10th Annual Rick Memorial Run

Last Saturday was quite the big day.  Misty, Shan, Sam, Mark and  and I ran the Toughest 10k in Texas in Lampasas.  It was a morning filled with heat, humidity and camarderie.  The race date coincided pretty closely with the 10th anniversary of us losing our good friend Rick Gastelum.   I think we've only missed one year doing some sort of special run for him.  Through the years we've done varying distances but this year was the first time we haven't done at least an out and back (15 miles) on the Barton Creek Greenbelt.  Several weeks ago during a Thursday morning run it occurred to me that the 10k we'd all signed up for might be a fun and different way to remember Rick.  Everyone agreed.

An interesting twist had Shan pushing 8 month old Sydney in her baby jogger AND Mark pushing 10 year old Lily in her baby jogger!  I think we pretty much knew Sam was gonna lead the way.  I sort of thought I might be able to keep up with Mark and possibly Shan but it was not to be.

For the record here's how we finished;

Sam       56:59    19th overall 1st in his age group

Shan      58:32    27th overall 1st in her age group

Mark     59:49     34th overall 1st in his age group

Jeff        1:02:19  38th overall 2nd in my age group

Misty    1:12:17  56th overall of 73 finishers

I guess we're all pretty critical of ourselves but I feel like I was the low performer.  Oh well, I did give it everything I had for that particular race and day.  

The most important take away from Saturday is through all these years we are all sticking close together as friends and that's the best way for us to keep Rick's memory alive.