Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Bloomsday Results 2013 - Crossing the Finish Line!

On Sunday, May 5th my kids and I participated in the 37th annual Bloomsday Run in Spokane, Washington!  Bloomsday is a 12K Race (7.46 miles) that winds through the streets and neighborhoods of town and is ALWAYS the first Sunday in May!

As my daughter and I were standing in the very large crowd waiting for our color group to start, we both made our guesses at to what color the Bloomsday finisher shirts were going to be this year.  They are a different color with a different design every year and it is kept a secret until the finish line.  My daughter guessed orange and I chose grey - never thinking one of us would get it right.  

Along the Bloomsday course we noticed that the volunteer t-shirts were orange.  Could the finisher shirts be grey?  Only time would tell...

My twelve year old son ran with one of his friends, setting their finish time goal for 1 hour.  My son's main goal is to beat his time last year of 1 hour 9 minutes.  My nine year old daughter and I set a goal of finishing in 2 hours or less.  The crowds were insane this year, and we had a difficult time getting around people.  Jogging off and on was few and far between because my daughter and I simply didn't have enough room to get around people very often.
It was a beautiful day, but it was SO hot!  Of course there were several water stations along the route, but I know that the heat slowed us all down.  But, we kept on going, didn't stop and all of us made it to the finish line faster than we did last year! 

My son crossed the finish line at 10:41 AM US/Pacific with a pace of 08:58 minute/mile.  His official Bloomsday finish time was 01:06:51, beating his time last year by 2 1/2 minutes!
My daughter and I crossed the Bloomsday Finish at 12:07 PM US/Pacific with a pace of a 16:57 minute/mile.  Our official Bloomsday results: 02:06:17!  Even though we didn't meet our goal of 2 hours, we were thrilled that we beat last year's time of 2:22. That's 16 minutes faster!! 

Imagine our surprise when we got to the finish and saw that the Bloomsday finisher shirts were GREY!  Lucky guess!

We can't wait for next year...


Have you ever participated in a 12K or similar event?

4 comments:

Andrea Kruse said...

What a fun experience for your kids! I haven't participated in any races/fun runs with my kids yet, but my son is almost old enough to try. I can't wait. ...and big congrats on guessing the shirt color! What a fun surprise.

Anonymous said...

That is awsome, you and they both did great!

Liz Mays said...

That's so cute that you tried to solve the tshirt mystery beforehand. Good sleuthing skills and bravo to the finish results!

Jessica said...

What a terrific experience! How adorable!