Our First Race

I’ve been a runner for quite a few years now (8+) but have never run in an actual race event. I made a goal for myself to run in at least 1 race in 2011; and I achieved that this weekend.

Our town was having their annual summer festival this past weekend and holds a race event. They have the race options of 1 mile, 4 mile or half marathon. I tried to talk Cory into running one of them with me but he had a long week at work last week and decided not to (he promised to join us next year though!). Without having much outdoor training time running with the boys during the past month (because of the extreme heat & humidity), I decided to only take on the 1 mile race since I would be pushing the boys in their stroller.

The day started out cloudy and looking like it was going to rain at any time. We arrived at the event early to register and get the boys their breakfast (since the race start time at 8 am is their normal breakfast time). The boys enjoyed their breakfast of rice rusks, a banana, blueberry yogurt and cheerios. The 4 mile & half marathon race start times were at 8 am and the 1 mile start time was at 8:10 am so the boys and I were able to watch & cheer on the other race participants.

I finished the race with a time of 11:45. A little longer than I was expecting but I have to give myself credit – it was my first race, I was pushing a double stroller and I didn’t do much ahead of time to prepare myself. I’m looking at it as a starting point for me for future races. What rocked – it was a cool summer morning and ended up lightly raining about 3 minutes into the race for a few minutes – which was a nice cool-off for me and the boys didn’t get wet under their huge canopies and I ran the whole thing - no walking!  A big congrats also goes to my awesome friend (& mother of two) "A" who ran the 4 mile (in preparation for her half marathon coming up next month) with a time of 37:52.

Here are some fun self-portraits from the day:

Breakfast of Cheerios before our race

Me & my boys

Wyatt & me post-race

Colton & me post-race

My 1st Race