Took a quick trip down to Yakima/Selah for a half marathon. It's been hard to find races in the Spokane area that are on Saturday and not on days that the girls have sports. This combo is almost impossible! It was a few hrs drive away, but we enjoyed the short vacation as a family. We were originally planning on moving here following grad school, and even had a home rental lined up until we got the offer in Spokane so it was fun to see the city that we almost lived in. We decided that it was a beautiful city and we would have had a lot of fun there, but we are still happy with our decision to go to Spokane. The girls brough their "spend" envelope money, and Lesley took them all to the mall on Friday evening. They had the best time shopping and finding fun things to spend their hard earned money on.
The race course was beautiful and followed the river through the canyon. I expected it to be a lot more downhill, kind of like most of the Utah canyon races that are bombing downhill. I was in pretty good shape and thought I had a shot at a new PR, but about 8-9 miles into the race I realized that the unexpected hills had taken a toll and I was off PR pace by a few min. I decided to just enjoy the rest of the race and not kill myself trying to make up time that wasn't going to happen. When I came through into the final stretch the girls ran up the road to meet me and then Penny stuck with me through the finish.
Picture from the Yakima Herald. I love Penny's "determined to keep up with daddy" face!
