from Coastin', November 2001 ...

Pound Puppies & Pounding Pavement  submitted by Paula Weant

I had such a wonderful day on Saturday, 10/13/01. It all started that morning when Jim and I along with several club members ran the Saint Michael's 5K run in Gastonia. I am really not a 5K racer, I do not enjoy running as fast as I can from start to finish but that morning I decided to see how fast I could go. When I got to the starting line, I counted somewhere between 40 to 2,000 participants.  There were people from all over Gaston County and I knew the competition would be tough. When the gun went off, I felt good and proceeded to run a blistering pace. There were a few children in the front of me and I was passing them one by one and I could hear them say, "who is the fast woman."  Up ahead, I could see one girl, so I set my sights on her and started concentrating. She was fast, real fast but she was young and I knew my experience out-weighed her youth. She stayed right in front of me until we got to the top of an extremely steep hill. She was having some kind of stomach distress and had to stop so I took the opportunity to make my move. As I passed her, I thought of my friend Reese and said to her “see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya."   I still had one half mile to go and I could hear the roar of the finish line crowd. When I started down the last stretch, I could hear people say, "you can catch her." Oh no, that girl is back and she is trying to pass me so there was only one thing left to do - ACCELERATE. It was exciting, I beat her by 2 seconds. Michele and Kim were at the finish line, crying tears of joy.  Rodney, Chuck, and Doug picked me up and carried me around on their shoulders. I have never seen my Jim so proud. The awards ceremony was amazing. I won this fabulous trophy, a really neat "proud to be American" long sleeve t-shirt, and (yes, there is more) a denim ball cap with a American flag on it The only sad thing is that since the race was not a sanctioned USTF race and the course was not certified, my world record time will not go in the record bocks. What a day - my first race in my 40s and my third biggest running accomplishment.

It's ironic how all my biggest running accomplishments are all associated with my dogs. In a previous article I told the story of running my first race so I could get my dog, Fuzz, and how after many wonderful years, the day after qualifying for the Boston Marathon my little Fuzz died. On Saturday, 10/13, Jim & I went to Pet Smart to look at their puppies. We were just going to look because we were not sure we were ready for another dog. One of the volunteers pointed out one especially friendly female so Jim picked up the puppy and started to play with her. She immediately started giving us puppy kisses and when we held her we knew the time was right for another dog. On Saturday, 10/13, the day I won my first race, Jim & I adopted our new puppy, Molly. Molly is a wonderful dog, full of spunk, and I know she will give us many years of love and puppy kisses and it won’t be long before she is pulling Jim & me around our neighborhood during out daily walks.