Ft. Lauderdale Riverwalk 5M Run

We flew into Ft. Lauderdale on Friday March 20th and didn't need to get onto our cruise ship until the next day in the late afternoon. Russ' niece Carrie lives in Miami so we stayed the night with her and had signed up to run a race with her on Saturday morning. We woke up at 5:15 am (or 3:15 am Utah time) and drove to downtown Ft. Lauderdale to pick up our race numbers etc. As we waited for the race to begin it began to pour down rain. But luckily it let up to a light sprinkle by the start of the race and then completely stopped.

Carrie, Russ and I before the race

Russ' finish

My finish (just seconds behind Russ)

Chillin' as we wait to cheer Carrie to her finish

Carrie's finish (she was really happy about something!)

After the race they had a really great breakfast for us - then it started to pour again. The race was a little larger race than we have done in the past so we didn't have any expectations of actually placing, but......Russ placed 4th in his division with a time of 37:15 (a 7:27 minute/mile) and I placed 3rd in my division with a time of 37:38 ( a 7:32) minute mile. We were both pretty happy. I think we had an advantage though - it was all flat except for a few drawbridges. And it was at sea level when we typically run in our neighborhood at 4,931' above sea level. We both made some really good times. And we could power up and down the drawbridges we had to cross over because we can never escape hills where we live. The race was through a residential area - the houses weren't huge - I'm sure they were worth a lot though. Each house had a channel behind it and personal docks. And each house had a yacht that was as big or bigger than the house it sat behind. Instead of giving medals the award was a matted print of a beach scene. They gave awards 4 deep in the race so Russ and I both received a print - we gave one to Carrie for her hospitality in letting us crash at her house the night before.

This is Tucker, Carrie's son. I included this picture because I think Tucker is a good representation of what our kids would look like if they resembled Russ more instead of looking mostly like me.

After the race we went straight to the boardwalk in Ft Lauderdale and had a 2nd breakfast across from the beach. Carrie's house was about 30 minutes away and the port for the cruise ship was about 5 minutes away so we decided to just wait and shower once we hoped on the ship. Unfortunately we didn't factor in the hours it would take to bring us our bags - which meant we didn't get to actually shower until about 6 pm that night! The photo they took of us as we boarded the ship was really bad!

Our stroll on the beach after breakfast