Do you like Beans? Do you like George Wendt? Would you like to see a movie with George Wendt Eating Beans?

Moriarty, NM. October 13th. It’s time for the PINTO BEAN FIESTA! Complete with parade, cotton candy, food, and yes, a 5K and 10K race. Turns out Moriarty is one of the main centers of pinto bean production (not just a villain in the Sherlock Holmes stories) – something that deserves celebration, don’t you think?

I signed up for the 5K – "Coach" K discouraged me from doing another 10K, and he thought the faster speed of a 5K might be good for training purposes. I was told the race was small, fun, and on a flat course. Plus, I heard that if I won, I’d get some pinto beans as a prize.

It was a little cold that morning, and when I finally made it to the high school where the race starts (I took the wrong exit off the interstate) I was told to pick out a couple of pumpkins to take home. ??? But there it was, a horse trailer packed with pumpkins. I picked out a nice one, and the race director shouted at me across the parking lot to take another one. :) yay – good for carving!

I tried to do a little warm-up, but this is the part of the whole race morning aspect I don’t do well. I’m supposed to run for maybe 10 minutes before race start, but I always worry about missing something, an announcement, and plus, I’m going to be running as hard as I can in 15 minutes, so I never feel like wasting energy. I’m wrong, and I know it, but I’m also slow enough that it probably doesn’t really matter. So, after a half hearted jog around the parking lot, we were called to the starting line. I did the first half mile in 3:15 (oops, I’m supposed to be doing 7:20 miles…). The second half mile was 3:40 – that’s better. A little hill after mile 1 slowed me down. There’s a woman 20 or 30 yards in front of me, and I decide to catch up to her. Mile 2 was 7:30 – whoops, a little slow, concentrate. Then, my pacer’s shoe came untied! I was catching up to her, too. She didn’t seem concerned about the laces as I passed her. She must have stopped to tie it later, because I looked back a few minutes later and I couldn’t see her. More annoying at this point was the guy behind me with his (cute) dog which had on a jingly dog collar. I tried to go faster just to get away from the noise! We ended in one lap around the high school track. I finished in 22:14. I am really happy with that, a PR (personal record) by 46 seconds!

Even better, I won a burlap bag of pinto beans and a nice silver bracelet, because I came in first woman overall! I got interviewed by the local newspaper, too. Am I famous now? Maybe to the 1800 souls in Moriarty, or at least the fraction of that number that receives the paper. Additional goodies: a bag of Hatch green chiles, and a third pumpkin.