Cliffton's Papa Jay's 10K

We interrupt this regularly scheduled moving blog story to bring you details of the best 10k EVER. Okay, it was my first 10k. But really, this race could not be topped. I hope I can do it justice....


A few weeks ago Amanda told me that her mother-in-law had read in the Preston Citizen that a 10k was being held in Cliffton (we assumed she had seen an add of some sort, not so...we found out later someone had written it up under the "Rural Route" portion of the paper. "Rural Route" is where people write about who's grand kids have come to visit and such) and would I like to run with her? Well, sure. Cliffton is a little community north west of Preston It is beautiful, I actually have roots in Cliffton. We didn't know what the occasion for the race was...thought maybe it was Cliffton Days or something? So, she called the number to register and found out that it was sponsored by Papa Jay's. Papa Jay's makes jerky. Really good jerky, by the way.


Amanda and I recruited some more participants: her friend Tawna, our sister Sara, and Sara's husband Todd.
Let me start by saying this....when we showed up with our 5 runners, we nearly doubled the racers. We found the park by the church just down the street from the gas station (where Papa Jay's is located) with no trouble. There was very few people and a card table set up. We went over and started talking with the Papa Jay lady in charge, come to find out she is going on the Trek this week and needed to go for a 6 mile walk, so she thought she would just go ahead and make a party of it and have a race. She told us to write our names on a label and pin it to our shorts and don't forget to write our names on a slip of paper for the drawing too.

When the appointed time arrived, 7 AM, all 17 of us lined up at the start line. There were 3 divisions: Biking (2 people), Running (9 people), and Walking (6 people)...oh and a dog that ran the race with us. The instructions we received were THE best. First she gave us the race route.

From the park we head out and make a right, then go a little bit til we cross the highway...now, we don't have any police escorts so watch for cars and don't get hit...there's usually no cars, but just be careful. Same thing when you come to the train tracks--watch for trains. So then you go along siphon road, well it's not really named siphon road, but there's a big pipe line that runs next to it, so that's what it's called. Cross over the train tracks and take a left. Then head north til you come to the hill, it's just a little one, we have a water stop set up there (her elderly mother was running it), then go up the hill and run next to the lakes for a while till you see the turn around. So, then you turn around and come back down the hill--feel free to take advantage of the water stop coming and going-- then come back and turn down and go down the first road til you come around next to the church, go around the church and back to the start/finish line.

Now, she went on to tell us, they'd marked the course with orange spray paint and inspirational quotes along the way. If we were to get tired, Handsome Bob would be coming around on a 4 wheeler to offer assistance...well, assuming there's no police around because the 4 wheeler's not registered. When we crossed the finish line, Dallas would be calling out our times and we would need to listen and remember them because we would then need to go back to the table, write it on our label and then stick it on the poster. Then go over to the the pavilion for some muffins and watermelon, pick up some jerky out of the basket and coupon (good for today only) for some beef jerky and see if you won the drawing. To start us off Handsome Bob has made an illegal fire work...ready Handsome Bob? Okay, have fun!

Once we took off Todd made the comment he felt like we were in some kind of Napoleon Dynamite sequel....you can't make this kind of stuff up, People. These things only happen in Small Town, USA.

The run was beautiful. Really, really nice. Perfect weather, great scenery, fantastic company. I was a little worried about how I would feel. I've been fighting a cold and had only gone on one 2 mile run since the move. 6.2 miles felt a little daunting. Glad I had my peeps with me. They kept me going strong. Final time 1 hour 5 minutes 22 seconds. None too shabby.

After we finished we enjoyed our watermelon and muffins. We all collected our beef jerky and we each won something in the drawing. Todd won a flashlight, Sara won a water bottle, Tawna won a bottle of pop, Amanda won a candy bar and a little train full of candy and I won a book light.


So, we headed over to Papa Jay's and picked us up some jerky.
That's Papa Jay's, World Headquarters. Don't forget.

P.S. If you run a race with Amanda, you WILL be doing jumping pictures.

She's fun like that.
However, you may want to review the pictures the very nice lady took for you...
I'm not exactly sure how high she thought we were all going to jump....eh, well.

In the infamous words of the "Rural Route":
A good time was had by all.
:)