Don Zetnick Arlington Winter Run

This week I chose to run in the 33rd annual Don Zetnick Arlington Winter Run on December 4, 2010. The race was held at the MAC (Maverick Activities Center) at UTA Campus in Arlington, TX, and benefited the YMCA of Arlington. One of the sponsors of the race was The Runner, a sporting goods store, promoter of local races, and also is the oldest running club in Tarrant County, which is owned by Don's son, Phil. Other sponsors included Mr. Jim's Pizza, Starbucks, Texas Health, Arlington Memorial, and other great companies.   Registration was held at the Maverick Activities Center from 7:15 to 8:15 AM. At 8:30 there was a Penguin Waddle for kids aged 11 and under. Both the 2 mile run/walk and the 10K started together at 9:00. There were several children entered in these races, who were trained by their school or the YMCA of Arlington. I've never run a 2 mile race before, so I chose to run in the 2 mile event instead of the 10K. If you check out my blog (www.runningforacause.tumblr.com) and click on results link, you can see all my race results which are hosted on a site called athlinks.com. The problem with athlinks is that some of the results are not accurate. This is because they sometimes have the same runner listed more than once on a given race. The good thing is that they have links to the original results page so you can always double check. I have run mostly 5K', but I have also run a few 10K's, and one 5 mile and one 4 mile race. I wanted to add a 2 mile to the list.   The race began in front of the MAC with the course running around neighborhood and then back on campus; a nice short flat race course. I lined up about 3 rows back. At the beginning of the race, there was a short straight away on campus then a left turn. Since this was only a two mile race I knew I didn't have to hold back at all, so I went as fast as my 59 year old body could take me. We took another left at the next street and the 10K runner went straight. I sure didn't want to get in the wrong line of runners. Anyway, they told us there was an orange cone at the 1 mile marker, but I got a little confused. As we went by the cone, I asked a runner by me if we were at the 1 mile already. She said "not yet, we have to go around a couple of streets and turn back around to go passed the orange cone at 1 mile marker."   At the 1 mile marker, my time was about 8:16. I was a little surprised at that so I tried to just keep it up as fast as I could. Knowing there was only 1 more mile in the race, I knew I could just give all the energy I had, and that it would be over soon. We had to double back around to the start/finish line so I knew the course pretty well. On the last quarter mile I was pretty tired, but I finished as strong as I could. The announcer called my name as I crossed the finish line in time of 16:20, good enough for a 1st place finish. I'm proud to say that my name was listed along with the other 1st place winners in the Dallas Morning News Sunday Sports Page. I finished 55 out of 340 runners.   This week's award was a little stuffed animal penguin with a medal. I think my dog or my son's dogs would love to play with it as a toy. I had a pretty lady runner take a few pictures of me getting my award. The next morning I volunteered for the Dallas White Rock marathon at the 18 mile water stop which was sponsored by the Dallas Running Club. As a volunteer, I handed out grapes and took pictures as the runner went by for 5 and half hours. They had 8 miles left to go to finish the complete 26.2 mile marathon.   My final line in men 55-59   Place    Bib#    Male Overall    Overall    Gun Time    Chip Time    Pace  1/3       490        41/149         55/340      16:20:0       16:18:7     8.09/m   I run to raise awareness for prostate cancer and to benefit my community. www.runningforacause.tumblr.com