Good thing I had entered this run the last time I did it a few weeks ago. My Garmin kept losing signal (between all the beeping in and out, it lost an entire mile!) The whole time I thought it was a 6 mile run, but I see it was just 5. Oh well. I ran the hilly habu trail and then up the big hill that will be the end of the 5k on Saturday. There was a huge line of cars waiting to get off base, and running through their exhaust for about 3/4 mile was not fun. I did see someone I knew and waved at her and then I had fun switching up my "get up the hill" game...normally I count sets of 6 bushes, today I got to "just get to the red car" and then "get to the car with its lights on", etc. I decided to do 2 laps around the track instead of just 1 so that I could take some time to walk down the hill to my house. During my 2nd lap, I had to take a 3 minute Star Spangled Banner Break. It was 5:00. I got really irritated at one guy who did NOT stop when retreat started. He finished his lap and then stopped. I don't care who you are or what kind of workout you're in the middle of... if you're on a military base and it's 5:00, the national anthem is going to play and you need to stop for it and be respectful for 3 minutes of your day. It happens every day at the same time, so it's not like he couldn't have planned his workout accordingly. When I left the house at 4:18, I knew that I would have to stop for the anthems at some point. It is my pet peeve when people don't stop when the anthems play... I always tell my students when we say the Pledge of Allegiance that that's our chance to say "thank you" and "I hope you're safe" to all the moms and dads, brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles and grandpas etc. who are away from their families and maybe in danger and we might not be able to say it in person, but it probably makes them feel good to know that every morning at school (and every 5:00 during retreat) we stop and think good thoughts for them. Maybe I should've done another lap to catch up with that guy once retreat was over and given him my 2nd grade teacher speech. I felt like I did this run faster than last time... I know the first mile was faster, then the Garmin started getting cranky. My special reward for doing so well...pizza!! Yum!
| 