Pretty in Pink!

Right in front of the capitol building is someone holding a tray of four blue "margaritas". Margaritas were the only thing missing from my Capitol 10K tradition. There was downtown fun on Friday. There was ARC happy hour beer on Sunday. Unfortunately, there was nothing to celebrate Saturday night.

Thus ended the tradition of me partying into the wee hours and showing up ready for anything but a 6.2 mile run. Instead began the tradition of dressing up for the Capitol 10K! Many people dress up for the occassion, and I never had. My outfit was actually recycled from my Friday night outing of Mr. Sinus Theater 3000's Pretty in Pink show. I had neon pink tights, a short black skirt (with a slit that instantly made it an athletic skirt), a pink girls' size 10/12 Pokemon t-shirt, a Hello Kitty metal purse and a nifty pink hair band. The only things new were my perfectly matching pink and purple DeFeet socks and purple Spring 2004 Mizunos! Pink fingernails to top it off. I did end up ditching the metal purse for my sanity's sake before the race.


Jennifer, Comet and Amanda all carpooled to the race together. We arrived just in time to run, but we didn't get into our timed corral. We ended up waiting an extra 15 minutes for the timed runners and walkers to go on their merry way.



It's not one of the cool helicopter photos you can see on the Statesman website, but it was the view I had for about 30 minutes as we waited and waited to cross the line.



Some friends were disappointed that I didn't dress up in something more extravagant, like this "Fast food". Maybe one year I will put more effort into a creative costume.



Jennifer and Amanda left me at the water stop around the mile one marker. All three of us had to dodge so many walkers and slower runners in the first few miles. After mile three, it was much easier to navigate the course.



I think I got a photo of these folks running last year in nothing but pretend fig leaves. Yes, that is a man and a woman running topless.



While scanning the crowds for a familiar face, I would notice the pink outfits. A woman had a bright pink shirt on that said "Keep Austin Weird". I kept thinking to myself how I should have stopped for a photo!! Then I saw a girl with a bright pink Powerpuff Girls shirt and thought the same thing. When I saw a row of spectating cows at the stretching rock, and one wearing a pink tutu, I just had to stop and get one of the cows to take our picture!



I saw these running fools all over the place on Sunday. From before the race through many of the band "stops". They would run the course until they spotted a band, run right up to it, and start dancing for awhile. The dancing "ladies" were quite energetic... and loud!



Amy took a picture of me on the run! She had said she'd be out on the course cheering, so I scanned the specators for her from mile one. Unfortunately, I didn't realize she would be near the mile six marker! I was so glad to see her! In the background is an Austin snowman.


Some behinds were funnier than others. While I was taking a photo of the front of the snowman, a runner next to me informed me that if I was stopping to take photos, I wasn't running hard enough. I told him, "I don't need to run hard, this is a fun run for me!" He seemed to accept that for an answer.



After the race, I recognized RunninDave! We finally got to meet offline.



If it weren't for the race bibs, it'd be hard to tell we were just a group of 10K finishers. This is Mike, Amanda, Julia and Jennifer.

Other noteworthy thoughts:

I am impressed with how well this camera takes photos while on the run! Not too many were blury. This was a nice fun run on a pretty humid and warm day. I should have used BodyGlide on my legs because the chafing from the pink tights hurt after mile 3! The temperatures affected quite a few runners as I saw about 5 on the ground being helped by the medical crew in the last two miles. The course was somewhat hilly and full of inexperienced runners and walkers. But that's part of the fun! I enjoyed the nice houses mansions along the new part of the course. It was modified this year due to construction on Enfield. I missed seeing Oscar and his buddies as we ran by his apartment last year. I spotted Coach Jamie running down the sidewalk of 15th in the opposite direction. I also saw Calvin, BobJ and Grace!! I think I spent more time in line at registration on Saturday than I did running the course.
Year Place    Name             Age  Overall Chip Time   Gun Time       Diff      Pace
2004 242    Julia Weatherby     27  1358    1:05:46.4  1:25:11.0    19:24.6   10:36/M
2003 150    Julia Weatherby     26   701      56:56.75   57:13.50   00:16.75   9:11/M
2002 353    Julia Weatherby     25  1654    1:15:00.5  1:19:13.3     4:12.8   12:06/M
2003 Race Report (was never written, but I took photos so someday I may do a writeup!)
2002 Race Report

Not that anyone would be interested, but here is the unladylike version.

Comet's Website