Greyhounds and rabbits - the chase was on!

With Way Too Cool breathing down my neck, I knew I needed to get a few miles in. I had never actually run the Brazen Hellyer course (the only Brazen course I had never run - I had volunteered at aid stations the last two years), so it seemed like it was time.

This is not my favorite kind of course; it's paved and pretty much flat. But it's a long out-and-back which means it's a good social course in that you get to see everyone at least once. And it's relatively close to home.

We started out with a jog around a lake.

And before we knew it, we were at the first aid station - the 5K turnaround. I do have to say that the trail is generally pretty scenic - it's also very popular with normal people too, so at times it was a bit congested.

The second aid station was where Weird Haired Mom and Grandkid Second Born were stationed.

The cone is keeping warm with a kiwi bird hat. This cone had another surprise coming in the near future.

This aid station was also the 10K turnaround.

Note that sections of the trail had some dirt single-track along the side that you could run on - this helped me a lot.

A huge surprise was that I was catching up to Mrs Notthat! And I got to watch her strip! (Well, only arm sleeves, but I'll take what I can get.)

The third aid station and I'm still keeping up with Mrs Notthat. Obviously she was not feeling right. (We had only been back from New Zealand for four days, which I'm sure had something to do with it.)

I liked this bridge until I actually got on it - it was not as stable as it looked and tended to bounce a little bit. Or a lot once I started stomping across.

You gotta love a turnaround that has its own Stop sign.

Finally the Half Marathon turnaround. This volunteer was a bit bored since nobody had tried to keep going. Yet.

I still had Mrs Notthat in my sights, but a Bad Influence named Kcirtap (not its real name) was about to catch up to her and get her moving a bit faster. Once he was done taking her picture.

The sweeper! I better step on it! (Yeah right. Although I think Mrs and the Bad Influence are still visible. Barely.)

So I'm stumbling along and I see this guy on rollerblades with a camera taking pictures of the runners. I figured him for some freak from the 80s out getting his kicks when I realized it was Mas (not his real name either), and that I was completely correct.

Eventually I made it back to the 10K turnaround where Grandkid Second Born couldn't be bothered to look up as he waved at me. He was too busy torturing that poor cone from earlier (he's got it mashed pretty good there).

When Mas came through, this is what he saw and took a picture of.

GSB decided to pretend to be a pirate and was walking around with this cone on his leg. (Exactly how many gummy bears did he eat there?)

And then a very happy sight - the Brazen Rabbit and her squeeze directing us towards the finish line.

And what a glorious sight it was.

Mrs Notthat ended up beating me, but not by all that much.

Shortly  after I finished, Grandkid First Born showed up with her friend Amme (not her real name). GFB paced her on her first 10K! Even cooler, the kids did it on their own!

And that's about it. Mrs Notthat missed a PR by less than two minutes, and I missed one by 17 seconds, which came as a total surprise to me. This course wasn't exactly great training for Way Too Cool, but it was good to get some competitive miles in.

And I ended up enjoying the race much more than I had anticipated - there was enough variety along the course to keep it interesting and it's always fun to see so many perky runners out there.

The rabbits, however, had nothing to worry about from me.

That's it - move along…

PS: You can see more of my pictures here.