I Ran with Dean Karnazes!!

This morning I had the honor to run with Dean Karnazes.
The weather has been horrible here, pouring rain since last night and all through the night.
I slept really bad.  I kept thinking "You are crazy, you will get up at 5:30 am to go run in this crappy weather!"  I got up, got dressed and went to the run by myself.  It was still raining pretty hard when I left so I decided to leave the boys at home.  When I got to Riverside by some miracle the rain stopped!
I was so happy that I had decided to come regardless of the bad weather.
Got there at 7 am.  This was at a high school.  All the kids from the cross country team were there and some other folks like me.  Not a huge crowd.  I think the rain scared the weaker ones away!!   I got my bib and I decided to wait outside to get a chance to see him when he arrived.  I had charged my camera last night, both batteries and right there camera decided to stop working! NOOOOOO!!!!! I ran to my car to get the other battery and came back just in time to see him arrive!  In yellow,  that is Dean when he got to the school.

He went inside in the gym to talk to the people that came for the run.  Picture is not very good but here he is with the school principal.

After that we headed out for the run.  I went out and waited for him to show up.  Yes I was in stalker mode.  He came to talk to me right there.  "Hi I am Dean! Thanks for coming, how are you?" really nice guy, was saying hello to everyone.  He is much smaller then I thought.

Dean's coach with the hat and glasses

I made my way close to the front for the start.  I was pretty close to him so I thought my chances would be good to run close to him for a few minutes.

This is before the start, he told everyone that the only rule is :"DON'T PASS ME!"

I did not know why someone would want to pass him and miss the chance to exchange a few words, but some did take off like it was a real race!  Their loss and my gain!



"DON'T PASS ME!!"

 We took off, he was not going fast, about 9:20/mile.  I did not know this but the run was actually on a trail.  Hello MUD!  I had decided to go with my GOOD shoes because the rain had stopped...OOPS!  Oh well,  at this point I did not care about my shoes.  The trail was really muddy and slippery...causing a few to fall.  I had the chance to run next to him and to talk to him.  I stayed close to him for the whole run.  It was GREAT!  He is very humble and super nice.  He answered all the questions that people were asking him.  He was saying that he does not like the media stuff.  He kept thanking people for coming this morning.  He said that yesterday his 42 miles were hard. 

There a picture I took:  you can see people ahead going up the hill...

 Me running with my new buddy!!!

See how happy he looks to be running with me!! ha ha!!

Thank you to the nice guy who took my camera and ran ahead to snap this one for me!!!

I found this one on Facebook! This is the finish line.

After that Dean said a few words to thank everyone.  We were told that he would only take pictures with the 2 groups of kids.  Before they got people ready for this, I went to talk to him and I asked him to sign my bib and he did!  He shook me hand and again said thank you for coming to run with him. 

I am so happy that I went.  If you have the chance to catch him when he passes near your town, GO!  It is worth the $. 

Watch Regis and Kelly on Monday maybe you will see me!!!

Now I got to go dry my shoes because I have a 10k race tomorrow morning!