Column: Twelve in '12

Zoinks! I spent over two hours of my Saturday morning chasing down Scooby-Doo in the Monster Dash 10-mile run in St. Paul.

Scooby and sidekick Velma were using the run/walk method during the race while I was sticking to my usual method of just slowly shufflin’ along. Scooby would run past me and then stop to walk. So then I would slowly pass the canine sleuth. Then Scoob would start running again and get back ahead of me.

That routine continued for the majority of the 10-mile run. I spent half of the race staring at Scooby’s tail and Velma’s orange sweater and black wig. In the end, Scooby and Velma beat me.

I finished the Monster Dash in 2:21.08.

My only goal for Saturday was to finish. The longest run I had done leading up to the race was seven miles and I didn’t want to set a time goal and then be disappointed when I wasn’t able to reach it. For me, just being able to finish this race was an accomplishment.

My husband, who is a much better runner than I am, took a different approach. He set a goal to run a 10-minute mile pace and finish in under 1:40. Chad pushed himself harder and finished in 1:32.38.

We were both pretty happy with ourselves when we finished.

Saturday’s race was the final event on my schedule for the year. It was race No. 13 in my quest for running 12 races in 2012. It was Chad’s 11th race and I’m pretty sure he’ll be doing a Turkey Trot somewhere for his final race.

For those of you keeping track, no you didn’t miss a column with my 12th race. In very anticlimactic fashion, I ran the Stillwater Lift Bridge 5K on Oct. 20.

I hadn’t planned on running that race but was asked by a high school friend who was in town for the weekend if I wanted to join her. So I signed up a few days before the event and ran my fastest 5K of the year in 32:36. Stillwater’s race was very low key and was nothing like Saturday’s event.

The Monster Dash featured more than 14,000 people who were there to run either the 5K, 10 mile or half marathon. And almost everyone was there in costume.

The costumes were definitely my favorite part of the race. The first three miles of my run flew by because all I was doing was looking at the different costumes of all the people passing me.

I was out there running with President Obama, dozens of superheros, Girl Scouts, scantily clad nurses, bananas, rock stars, animals … you name it. My favorite two costumes were one guy who wore the whole shower costume from Karate Kid and another woman who ran with a sandwich board that said she was one of “Mitt Romney’s binder full of women.”

And then, of course, there were hundreds of people that were just dressed up as runners.

After the race we took a few minutes to eat and replenish fluids before climbing on a bus to take us back to the starting line. Ironically, we ended up in the seat right behind Scooby and Velma.

Tags: lifestyle, health