Gulf Winds 15K - Tallahassee, FL

Stephen ran in the Gulf Winds 15K on Saturday at Bradley's Country Store. That's 9.3 miles for non-runners. The morning started and finished extremely cold. Our thermometer read 28 degrees when we left Cairo. It warmed up to around 30 degrees by the start of the race. Over 170 people ran in the 15K and another 150 people ran a 30k that started at the same time and ran along the same course. Stephen started out in the top 10 and ended up 7th overall with a time of 58:47.

He looked like he would freeze to death at the beginning of the race, but must have warmed up as the race got going. The runners ran up Old Centerville Road about 4.5 miles then turned around and came back. As the runners came into sight around the 8 mile mark Stanley Linton was leading several Leon High upperclassmen in a pack of 4. Following the lead pack were Coach Droze and another Leon upperclassmen. About 4 minutes after the leaders came through Stephen, Sukhi Khosla (a freshman from Leon) and Jarod Hoffman (a sophomore from Godby) came into view running almost side by side. As Stephen hit the 8 mile mark he began to pull away a little from the other two runners. In the end, he beat Khosla by just 3 seconds and Hoffman by 16 seconds. After finishing the race, Stephen came over and there was frost on the top of his sock hat from the sweat rising to the top of his hat and freezing. Crazy weather to run in.

You can view all of the 15k race results here.

Billy Bowlegs 5K - Tallahassee, FL

On Friday night Stephen, Jacob, Caroline, Kappy and I went to watch my nephew, Tyler Beyer, play soccer at Leon High School. Stephen decided to run a 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles; 52+ laps) around the Leon High track while Tyler was playing. We watched as Stephen ran round and round the track for almost an hour and a half.

The next day Stephen decided to run in the Billy Bowlegs 5K at FSU's College of Engineering. Stephen finished third overall behind Stanley Linton and Chase Harris. Chase had not run since before the holidays so both of them were a little slower than usual. A nice day for a race though. You can view all the results at Gulfwinds.  Also, read Herb Wills' article about the race.