Pacing and meeting new friends

Today I paced another 10K at 65 minutes!  This time, I was all by myself.  I tried to set my Garmin to give me a split time every quarter mile, like I did before, but I couldn't figure out how to do it.  I don't know how I did it before and then put it back to miles the next day.
This race was a Hawaiian themed race called  Kona Run.  I had to leave the house at 4:45 am.  Why do I let myself get talked into these things??!!  (A fellow Thursday night running group member is on staff for this race and is in charge of putting together a team of pacers so that is how I got involved.)  
When I went to the start area with my 65 minute sign with the other pacers,  people started coming up to me asking me about pace and stuff.  I recognized one woman but had no idea why I thought she looked so familiar.  I hope she didn't notice me staring!  Something she said made me realize that I had read her blog recently!  She is "That Loud Redhead", AKA Stephanie!  She was running with her 11 year old son who really wanted to try to break 65 minutes; it was his 2nd 10K.  Another woman kind of looked familiar, too, but I had no idea why.  Later on, her and Stephanie were talking about running their first half marathons last week (6 days ago!) at the Dexter to Ann Arbor Half Marathon!  That's when it hit me, I had seen a comment that my sister had made on Facebook to someone who had run the half marathon and I was pretty sure that it was her so I asked her if she knew my sister and she did!  When she told me her maiden name, I did remember her from high school!  I had two runners who had run a half marathon 6 days ago!
I know we were right on target at 4 miles at 42 minutes.  (10:30 per mile x 4 miles)  We were a little fast for the 5th mile and when we were coming up on the 6 mile marker we were over a minute ahead.  My 11 yr old runner really hung in there the last mile.  I knew we were around 40 seconds ahead at 5 miles so I slowed a little and walked a few extra steps at the water stop right after the 5 mile point.  He really pushed through and when we were coming up on the 6 mile marker, he took right off!  He was very happy with his 1:03:something 10K PR!!  It was the highlight of my day! 
Somewhere along the way, I think around 4 miles, a car came barreling around the barricade at an intersection and proceeded to drive fast down the middle of a street full of runners as runners swerved right and left to avoid being plowed over.  I guess not everyone likes having the streets closed and a bunch of healthy, happy, athletic people running their races! 
After the race, several people who ran with my pace group gathered for a picture and somehow my phone/camera did not end up with a group picture so I am hoping to get one of the whole group from one of the others.
I also took a picture of "That Loud Redhead" and her son:

Stephanie and her son, the proud owner of a new 10K PR

 I also got a picture with my high school classmate and good friend of my sister, Pam:

I really like the shirt given for this race and, for the first time ever, I wore it to run the race in!  I've never done that before.  I know that I will wear this shirt a lot.  

Tomorrow it is 18 weeks out from the Chicago Marathon!!  Time to get a training plan picked out and get going!! 

Runner Nerd
very tired from getting up at 4 am.