Grey Ghost Run

This year, Greg and I decided to run the Anoka, MN Grey Ghost Run. Anoka is the Halloween capital of the world! That and it is just north of my home town of Coon Rapids. The timing of the run seemed perfect for our training, giving us one more taste of a group run before the big 1/2 marathon.

This run was different from others that I've done. It started at 12:50pm. An odd time, but it did make sense. The Grande Day Parade began at 1:00pm. How does this make sense? The first mile of our route was the parade route. We began the parade. How crazy is that?

There were so many people in funky costumes in the race. I saw a ton of cats, teenage mutant ninja turtles, and Matrix dudes (odd). The best was a group of 6 basketball player, complete with a hoop on wheels. They looked like a great 80's vintage team with fabulous wigs!

There were about 1500 people running this day, so the start was chaos. Greg and I had decided early on the run our own race, and not with each other. It was a great decision, because we lost each other about 50 feet into the race. My family was about 1/2 mile down the road, so it was exciting to know we'd see them along the way. However, they only saw me because I yelled at them. They did find Greg though.

The first mile was GREAT! There were so many people cheering us on, and high fiving the runners. It really pumped me up! Beginning mile 2, the crowd disappeared. We left the parade route and hit the neighborhoods. Then, the hills came up. It was a very hilly 2 miles. Just past the 2 mile point, we turned back around to head to our finish line. About 1 minute after my turn around, there was Greg! I still can't believe we saw each other. He was doing so well.

The end was just as chaotic as the beginning. They had 3 corrals to collect our run numbers. They girls collecting the numbers were moving slow, and the line dragged. This is not what I needed after running a hilly race. I went from pushing it at the end, to a dead stop. Not good! The line moved so slow, that I missed Greg's big finish. I'm just glad he suggested I bring my phone with me. I never would have found him without it.

I finished in 30:15, and Greg finished in 32:20. It was a good run, and even better when I consider that I didn't train much last week because I was down with a cold that sucked the life out of me. I'm still pretty happy with my time.