Today had a very early start for me – 5:30am. I was ‘off to the races’ – literally. My first official ‘run’, the 7K Penenome Circuito Asics, began at 7:30am in Penenome, Panama. It was a trail race, and had a 7K or 21K option, of which myself and ten of my friends were doing the 7K portion. As I’m more of a power-walker than a runner, I paced myself accordingly, and was kept company during the race by my wonderful friend Lynda. We traveled down rocky, country paths, through a small river, and looped around to repeat the route on the way back. If you weren’t careful though, you could have missed the 7K turnaround and gone much farther than anticipated, which happened to one of us, as it wasn’t clearly marked!
The best part was that we didn’t even come in last – not that it would have mattered! I clocked my efforts on Endomondo, an app that I use on my Blackberry which tracks distance and time. It showed that our 7K walk was actually 9.55K! Only in Panama of course, lol! As I walk often, it wasn’t an issue, and the weather was wonderfully cooperative with moderate temperatures (for Panama) and a light cloud cover. When we arrived in at the finish line, we were all awarded our participation ‘medals’, which you see in the photo. I love it!