Great organization, a good crowd of runners and walker, delicious food, cold temperature but sunny conditions, and smiles faces.... all of these were present in the 2009 edition of the Steam Whistle 12K. Thanks to all organizers and volunteers for a work very well done.
For Hispanic (Latin) people a morning New Year's Day run is a difficult task to do. Generally, we have a super-yummy-dinner after midnight to welcome the New Year, get some adult drinks and then dance salsa and merengue for a couple of minutes

-- Anyway, we, Latin-American runners, "sacrify" ourselves and go for the Steam Whistle race early morning. I am glad I saw Ginny Dufrene this morning. She can run 100 miles at once and at a steady pace, so I decided to join her running gang for the 12K. Jim Coll, Kim Ryder, Kily Garcia, and Christie Stricker were in the pack too. This is the first time in my life I managed to pace myself in a run. We stayed running together for the first 6.5 miles and then tested our legs in the last mile. 13-years old Christie and Jim were the strongest guys at the end. We all finished the race between 56 and 57 minutes. I did it in 56:50 and was lucky enough to place second in my age group. A guy named Terry The Hammer Lawhead (have you heard of him?

) was the overall winner while Kayla Stricker won the women race.
Anyway, I am now very tired, so I decided this will be my last race for the year 2009! that's it!
