Short update. On 9/9/17 I participated in a local race in my new town. The Freedom Run 9.11 miler. There was also a 5k race and a 1 mile kids run.
The race was small but nice. The weather was fantastic and much, much better than all that rain in New Hampshire for the Covered Bridges Half the weekend before.
Located on the paved trail of the Dismal Swamp Canal (believe me it is much nicer than the name makes it sound) less than 200 of us headed out for a beautiful run in remembrance of those who lost their lives or were someway affected by the tragedy of 9/11.
I signed up the day before because I figured it was so close I might as well participate. Since I had just run a half the week before I decided to make it more of a training run with a nice steady slightly increasing pace. This usually leads me to end up running alone. Sometimes I really think I have an odd pace, because even in big races I seem to end up alone or with just a few runners around. Lucky for me I have no problem running solo. In my opinion it looked like a lot of runners were headed out too fast at the beginning of the race. I have always been more of a “start slow and let them go” kind of mentality. If I get too caught up in the fast pace of a start line I suffer at the end.
The course was an out and back loop and sure enough right before and after the turn around I stared passing people who probably headed out too fast. Slowly but surely I passed at least a half-dozen or more runners. With each one I eyed the next person ahead of me. I made my way to the finish line with a respectable time. Plenty of food and drinks awaited. Buffalo Wild Wings, YNot pizza, chocolate milk, beer, water etc. Gotta say that was a pretty good spread for a smaller local race!
Everyone who finished received a nice commemorative medal.
To my astonishment I found out later that day that I had placed 3rd in my age group! That’s a first! Small race but hey I’ll take it, it’s all about who shows up that day right? The only downside is they didn’t do any AG awards at all. In fact only the #1 man and woman in each race received an award. Oh well. At least my family was excited for me!! 
About a week later I started having some hip problems. I had hip bursitis about 7 years ago and this felt just like that. So I did no running for just over a week. I also started Active Release Therapy with a local licensed massage therapist. Come to find out I have a tight hip, IT band and calf. Yikes! Still working on loosening things up but started back with some short runs. Needless to say this is gonna put a dent in my next half in early October. We will see how it goes.
