Race for the Pinks 5k

I signed up for this 5k mostly because it was a few blocks from my house. Can't beat the transportation! The 5k was starting at 8:00 and the fun run at 9:00. I drove to the race (which felt really, really lazy) because Harry wanted to do the fun run and I was a little worried about getting him there in time.

Anyway, I put on my running skirt I bought for last year's Princess Half. I'm really not the running skirt type, but I thought it would be appropriate to look girly for the Race for the Pinks. Unfortunately, I'd never worn it before and it was both short and big. The little bit of coverage provided felt like it might slip down- that was distracting!

I talked to my friend Michelle before the race who just wanted to finish. I wanted to have a new time to plug into the race calculators so I lined up behind the always present half-naked, trash-talking high school boys. My friends Cheryl and Mary were next to me. They were doing this race the weekend before the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. Hard core. Cheryl tapped me on the arm and asked how old I was. I told her I'm 39. Her response was something like "oh, I thought you were older!" And now I know I'm a runner, because instead of thinking that I can't get to Botox soon enough, I recognized that she just wanted to know if she had to worry about me in the Master's division. Cracked me up.

The race started. First couple of blocks is downhill. Cheryl and Mary are in front of me. I find this unacceptable since I'm sure they're holding back a bit for their full next weekend. So I trot on past them. And found myself next to Allison. She's a triathlete type and she's running insanely fast. I keep up with her the first mile and a half- we're pushing 7:20s. The course is hitting all the hills. Using Cheryl's logic, it suddenly hit me that Allison is younger than me. Bye Bye.

The rest of the race was uneventful. I finished in something like 23:5x. I was hoping to be faster, but I was in the same order with the locals so I guess the hills took a toll on everyone (except Allison- note to self: don't try to keep up next time!)

Time to go get Harry. Pity I can't get out of the parking lot without going across the race course. Hmmmm.... I grabbed Harry's bib and just started trotting back to my house. I loaded Harry up in the stroller, knowing that he wouldn't want to go one step farther than a mile. I'm sure we were quite the sight- I'm hot, sweaty, wheezing, limping, pushing the ginormous Harry. (At least my skirt stopped threatening to fall off once I got hot). The race monitors laughed at me. Harry and I made it to the parking lot and put the stroller in the car.



We lined up. I was bragging about how Harry maintains a nice steady pace. Yeah, he immediately took off... and in half a block was walking. I remember him trying to walk on a curb and falling (good to get the prerequisite race fall out of the way early). He'd run, he'd kick pinecones, he'd walk, he'd wave at other people, he'd break into a limp and start rubbing his leg- very busy mile! It was definitely fun, but it took a long time to finish (I think 14:xx minutes). Harry did sprint in the last block or so. To his utter dismay, they'd run out of medals. I knew I'd won my age group, so I told him to stick around and that I'd give him mine. Unfortunately, I forgot that instead of medals, I'd be getting a little towel. Harry was less than impressed. Such is life in the back of the pack.



The teenage age boys were from a cross country team in Douglas- they finished 1st through 5th. Cheryl won the Master's division, but she was behind me. So did I really beat her or did she just play it safe and ignore me since I wasn't in her division?? My vet was at the finish line holding a random puppy. Turns out he'd seen it at his office the day before- it was chasing people on the course so he grabbed it and was going to walk it home. Small town!

I did decide I might have a new policy regarding 5ks. I couldn't run this 5k with my newbie friend because I needed enough time to pick up Harry, but I think in the future I may try to help pace some of my friends. I had an okay race time, but I was really crippled for a full week afterwards. I had to skip a lot of training including two weekend long runs- not smart. I'm not really sure why I can't seem to get rid of lingering injuries (apparently if you have some sort of PF in your left foot, you can overcompensate with your right and then end up with both legs crippled...) but stupid me shouldn't have been so competitive.

Worldwide Festival of Races

This is a hard one to describe without totally admitting what a dork I am.

When I first started running way back in 2006, there was this newfangled invention- an iPod. And on that shockingly little Walkman, you could put something called a podcast. I don't know how it happened, but at some point I started listening to this guy, Steve Runner, who does a show called Phedippidations. Half the time I didn't understand what he was talking about, but I liked listening to him telling running stories and sharing information. And, let's face it, it was free and you can only take so much of the Black Eyed Peas on the treadmill.

One day, my new running friend, Steve, announced he was going to start a virtual race called the Worldwide Festival of Races. The timing of the race fell into my Goofy training. All I had to do was sign up online and print out a bib they generated, run a half marathon over a certain weekend, and post my results. I signed up and that Saturday, I went outside and I ran and ran and ran... and walked some... and ran some... it was my longest run ever. When I finished, I hopped in the bathtub fully dressed like the other hard core runners and took an ice bath. Alright, I'm not that hardcore- I took a luke cold bath, but still. I remember calling my mom and saying "I just ran a half-marathon!" So there it was- my first half marathon finish. I was very pleased with myself, but officially terrified of the Goofy.

Fast forward: I ran the Goofy, and had a baby, and signed up for the 10k the next year. I vaguely remember finishing that one. I think I might have done one other, but it really is a blur.

Fast forward again: When Steve started talking about the Worldwide Festival of Races this year, I was a little perturbed because it fell the weekend AFTER my half-marathon in Jacksonville. Technically I could have counted the Jax half as my virtual half, since I'm the one who reports my results, but it didn't feel authentic. And then I realized Ted was going out of town the weekend of the virtual half- ah, not meant to be.

But wait! Friday night was Parents' Night Out! And now Ted would be out of town and the kids had somewhere to be for a three hour block of time- and the Worldwide Festival was back on! I signed up again...

I scrambled around Friday getting the kids ready for Parents' Night Out (crazy hair night requires significant prep time). After dropping them off, I headed to the Y for a treadmill because I didn't want to run in the dark.

I hopped on the treadmill. Before pushing the start button, I stood there a minute and debated whether or not to pull my scrunched down compression socks up to my knees. Finally I decided that it wouldn't really add that much to the weird runner vibe I was already giving off- bright pink shoes, two water bottles, gels, visor, iPhone... so I yanked the compression socks up and pushed start.

Mile 1: yeah, not feeling it. Surely it will get better.
Mile 2: hey, this still sucks.
Mile 3: I'm cool with the old guy changing the channel, but seriously, the Weather Channel??
Mile 4: oh crap. I forgot to eat dinner.
Mile 5: oh look, I can have a gel for dinner. Yum.
Mile 6: shouldn't this be sucking less by now?
Mile 7: I'm all alone in the gym... kind of creepy.
Mile 8: I am so getting a biscuit at KFC when this is over!
Mile 9: stupid virtual race! have to start the treadmill over cause I'm almost out of time...
Mile 10: soul crushing to see the miles start over.
Mile 11: maybe I should slow down?? (but then this horror will never end!)
Mile 12: I'm so hungry...
Mile 13: that's it! I am NOT doing the last .1 miles!
0.1 mile: oh fine!!- I'll finish this stinking race!

And that's it. 13.1 miles at 9:50/mile. I took a quick shower, changed, and headed straight to KFC for my biscuit (or two). For once the kids were all organized and by the door so picking them up wasn't the usual challenge.

And that's my virtual race report on my virtual race!

Jacksonville Marine Corps Half 2010

Background:

I signed up for this race primarily as a means to keep myself training during the summer. If I don't have a race looming over me, I will stop running. It's that simple.

Week before the race: shoe catastrophy.

Long story, but basically I had one pair of pink Newton shoes that were a little snug and I had a pair of yellow Newtons with 500+ miles (yes, I finished out the 500 miles). I had a pair of Sauconys that seemed fast but were completely untested. I also had a pair floating in the mail (thank you, Road Runner Sports, for sending me the men's version of my favorite yellow shoes and then taking forever to correct it- oh, except wait, it wasn't corrected- I got a duplicate pair of the tight pink shoes that I now need to send back... and there was the long story. D'Oh).

All of that was just a set up to explain why I ran two miles in the week before the race. Yep, TWO. My PF was flaring up and all of my shoes freaked me out in their own special ways. I took the extra time to print out pace charts. As the week grew longer, I started tossing those charts- 1:46? Ha! 1:47? Not likely. Finally, I decided I'd just wing it with my Garmin- if I could hit steady 8:30ish miles, I'd be happy.

Day of the race:

I was on the road by 4:00 a.m. I think it's actually easier to drive at that hour than try to pack all of my running stuff and all of the kids' stuff and get ready in a hotel... Of course, after you've run Disney, hitting the road in pitch black darkness still feels like sleeping in!

Yeah, forgot two important things: there's no traffic on the back roads in South Georgia at 4:00 a.m. and the Marines were in charge of the race. I was parked and ready at 5:30 a.m. and packet pickup took about 30 seconds. Oh well- gave me time to stress out over the three pairs of shoes I dragged along! Did I mention the race started at 7:00 a.m.? I watched them make some last minute adjustments to the balloons at the start line- not everyone can say that!

I perused some sort of Florida running magazine, decided on my old tested yellow Newtons, popped a gel and 2 endurolytes, and just people-watched from my car. Finally I made my way to the port-a-potty lines. While in the line, I chatted with a father and daughter running together (he'd done 3 Goofys, this was her first half). He warned me about the "corkscrew"- I wasn't really clear on what it was, but it involved a bridge and a horrible descent around mile 11... Oh good.

We lined up. There were no corrals or even signs. That didn't make me very happy. The Marines band played the National Anthem- really good.

And the start:

Ugh. Too crowded. Lots of weaving. I'm good with walkers even with their Camelbacks- what do I know, they may be testing their equipment for an Ultra- but must they get right in front of me??

Mile 1- 8:49

And there's the first bridge. It wasn't too bad...

Mile 2- 8:17
Mile 3- 8:51

Somewhere in here was the second bridge. It was really bad.

Mile 4- 8:18

I was delusional. I actually thought I could recover from the bridges and get back to an 8:07 pace.

Mile 5- 8:30

Lucky break: found an older hard-core looking guy in a bright green shirt. Decided he would be my pacer.

Mile 6- 8:25

Kept following the old guy. I liked the auto-pilot. Somewhere around here I actually noticed some of the cool stuff we were passing- trendy restaurant/shopping area, neighborhoods...

Mile 7- 8:33

I was feeling pretty good, although every now and then just out of nowhere I'd get hit by a massive urge to start walking. I usually gave myself a mental slap and changed my music...

Mile 8- 9:04

Dude, the old guy was so slick- I didn't even know he had a gel until I saw him toss it. I got mine out of my pocket (not easy carrying my iPhone and water bottle too). It wouldn't tear. Damn. I stopped running and finally tore it- I ate maybe half. In all my fumbling, I lost my old guy pacer.

Mile 9- 8:23

I could see the bright green shirt on the horizon, but I couldn't catch the old guy. I threw out my water bottle.

Mile 10- 8:51

I was still sad about losing my pacer, but I distracted myself wondering just exactly what the "corkscrew" was and how close we were...

Mile 11- 8:47

We were on sidewalks along the river now. It was nice because of the view, but it was kind of tight and my 500 mile Newtons weren't so cushy on the concrete.

Mile 12- 9:31

And around here, I learned what the "corkscrew" was. First, there was a pedestrian bridge- you went up about three squares of sidewalk, then leveled out about two, then repeated. And again... I made it to the top without walking, but then had a weird sort of out of body, knees buckling sensation. It was disturbing, but I was pretty sure no one around me was in good enough shape to rescue me, so I pressed on... to the corkscrew. It was a square ramp thing that just went down and down and down... I guess it was designed to avoid stairs, which I would have appreciated had I been pushing a stroller, but the sharp turns were really painful. I finally made it down. The one part of the corkscrew that I did like?? I saw a little bright green shirt way down below me. It was my old guy pacer! I couldn't catch him, but he hadn't gained a bunch of time on me since my unfortunate gel incident...

Mile 13- 8:57

We were in the Jacksonville Landing area now- lots of random people staring at us. I was desperately looking for the stadium... People who still had a little kick started passing me. Bastards.

Oh look, a photographer. At mile 13. After three bridges. Lovely.

.1- 1:02

And the finish. 1:54:26.

We ran under some sort of artillery Marine tank things. Pretty cool. A Marine put my medal around my neck- it's actually a nice substantial medal. For the price, I didn't expect much. (Now that I think about it, the shirt was really nice too. This race was quite the deal for your money!)

Another Marine handed me a pint glass. It's all trendy now to grab a beer at the finish- Budweiser was a sponsor. While fun in theory, I passed on the Budweiser before 9:00 a.m. I did however score a Moe's breakfast burrito. Normally I would scorn a breakfast burrito (not because I'm so pious, but because the thought of eggs in a burrito isn't appealing). I ate this one in the car (that I found after the traditional wrong turn in the parking lot). Best part of the race.

Ah, burrito...

Donned the sweet compression socks, pulled over to change my wet shirt, and made it home by 11:00 a.m. Not bad!

The best part of the race (besides the breakfast burrito?): I didn't finish and immediately freak out about how I was never running again!

Harvest Run 2010

Over the years, I've developed some running fears. There are two main categories: elements outside of your control and then those involving internal control.

All right, elements outside your control are obvious- dogs are number one, then maybe traffic, then weather. Oh, and Thursdays are trash days- which is worse, the closed trashcan still full of trash or the recently emptied one with the lid flopped open?! (Trick question- the worst is to get behind the TWO trucks that are in my neighborhood- took me a long time to realize there wasn't just one truck sadistically following me on my rambling route!)

The internal control issues are related mostly to coordination- you know- fall off a curb, twist your ankle, knock out your front teeth, etc.

Some fears even combine the two: twist your ankle while screaming and running from a pack of chihuahuas or have a driver see you conducting your music because the heat exhaustion finally made you snap. Not that I have any experience in either of those fears. Ahem.

That brings me to the Harvest Run 1 mile Fun Run. Coach Harry wanted to run this one with me. It was the same day as the duathlon so I was looking for a really good reason to not run the 5k- perfect!

Harry and I lined up towards the back. He'd been talking trash in the car- he's going to run the whole way, there's no walking in running, and I better try to keep up. Yeah, ok. He was wearing an armful of Superman silly bands... The race started. We took off!

Within maybe five feet I realized that I was pushing the baby, but I didn't see Harry. Huh..seemed really quick to lose him. I looked behind me- nothing. Then I looked down. And there was Harry- looking like he decided to stop and make some snow angels on the asphalt. Well that was unexpected. And in my next surreal moment, a man behind us (who I'm sure had kids of his own cause only a parent would do this) just hoisted him back to his feet and put him next to me.

So both Harry and I had a shared out of body experience and found a new running fear- falling flat out backwards! There was nothing to do, so we just started running.

Harry did well the first quarter of a mile or so. He complained a bit about his feet. Personally, I would have gone with the "I just landed flat on the street" excuse, but whatever.

Around the halfway point, we found a friend from swimming lessons. He started chatting with Harry. Then he said the greatest thing ever: "I'm going to win, you're going to lose." Now this kid was faster and older and thinner, so he was probably right. But, he didn't count on how competitive Harry is. Suddenly the feet felt fine and we were booking it(comparatively speaking).

Harry's friend is all over the place- he's behind us, he's in front of us- just chatting with people. I think he literally ran circles around us. The kid really is oblivious just talking to people and having fun, but Harry is getting all worked up. With about two blocks left, I spotted the kid sitting on a curb with a friend. Yes, sitting.

I whispered to Harry, "Your buddy isn't paying attention... if you just keep on running, we're going to win..." He nodded at me conspiratorily, and we kept on moving. Finally, the last turn- out of nowhere, Harry threw in a sprint finish (again, comparatively speaking). I had no idea he'd saved a little kick! We finished in 12:20. Not the fastest mile ever, but we were pleased. (And yes, we totally took the distracted friend!)

After the race, we decided to watch the 5k. Harry and his friend hung out together raiding the food goodies, poking at ants, cheering, and just doing other boyish things. I think they were both pleased with the race- Harry was quietly glowing over his victory and the other kid probably knew it was a "fun" run and that he could have taken us at any point. I let the baby out of the stroller (who never said a peep during the race) so he could hang with the big boys.



And that's pretty much it. Harry has another sweet medal and I have a new running fear. Oh, and after much discussion, Harry and I came to the conclusion that the fall was caused by a silly band flying off his arm at the start- we think he tried to catch it and lost his footing. We're both fuzzy on the details...

Heels to Wheels Duathlon

I signed up for this one in some euphoria induced haze from surviving the Turtle Crawl Tri- What?! No swim?! I'm in!

And then I started running more miles. And running more miles. And my bike sat in my garage... And I learned something about myself: I'm just a runner. I can dabble in the whole bike/swim thing when I'm hurt and I can't run, but if given a choice of the three, I'll be running... and sitting on my couch, but mostly running.

That's my whole justification for why I hadn't been on my bike in three months. I bought a new pump, pumped the tires, took the sticker from the tri off, and rode around the block. Most people do brick workouts for preparation- ride the bike for say 30 minutes, run for 15 minutes. Nope, not me.

Saturday morning rolls around. After about a month of never waking up late or resetting my alarm for the kids' schools, I woke up late. Not just a little late, but supposed to be in transition 15 miles away 15 minutes ago. Hmmm... At least I didn't have to think about options- throw on the clothes, grab the transition bag, throw the bike in Ted's truck, and on the way! The race was going to start at 7:30 a.m. I arrived at the park at 7:20 a.m. I ran up to the registration area, started filling out the waiver, had to leave my bike and run back for my ID- tedious. Finally got marked and dropped off the bike. My entire transition space consisted of a towel, my helmet, and a water bottle. I had to stash my goody bag behind the bike because I didn't have time to go back to the truck again.

Saw a few friends. Chatted a bit, but still frazzled by my crazy morning. The thought of racing 43 minutes after waking up is a bit daunting. The thought of having part of that race be on my bike was too much to bear.

They gave us our instructions and we all lined up in the grass. It turns out they wanted us to run along the grass for maybe 1/10 of a mile and then turn onto the street. Race starts. No big deal, but I was a little wobbly in the new Newtons with the funny lugs on the grass. We hit the street- lots of little long hills. You go up, you go down, then you do it again cause it's an out and back course. I think I'm second or third girl, so I'm pretty happy. My pace was in the neighborhood of 7:20 miles.

And now I'm in transition- I grab my helmet and bike and walk to the mounting area (it's a crack in the asphalt that I guess looks like a line). I get on and realize my glasses are totally foggy. Oh good. I still can't get my water bottle while riding and there's no way I can get to my glasses and clean them. And for that matter, what would I clean them on? As I'm pondering all of this, my head is slightly forward and the breeze hits my glasses- problem solved!

I head out on the roads. OK, not only did I not ride my bike ahead of time, I didn't check my gears. Yes, I checked the basic "don't leave it in too hard a gear" thing because apparently people get on and then fall off, but I forgot to make sure it wasn't in too easy a gear. You know the big gear thingy? It was in the small ring, so I couldn't generate much speed. I tried pushing down the button a bunch, but it wouldn't shift. As all of this is going on and I'm practically hyperventilating, everyone I just passed is passing me. "On your left!" Oh, really? All of you are on my left! The people with the fancy tires are killing me- "wait, you're passing me on my left? I thought that was the lifeflight people coming to get me!" Seriously, they make this crazy whooshing noise... Everyone had on their fancy bike shoes too. Oh, and my bike was making this horrible noise like a sticker was hitting the tire over and over. I decided to think of it as a metronome so I didn't completely lose my mind. (Turns out it was part of the cadence thing for my Garmin that I've never been able to work- that was money well spent).

OK, had to pull it together. Hit the turnaround....s l o w l y... told the volunteer I probably needed to learn to turn. Chatted with a nice guy who had a bike like mine. Took off again. I mashed that stupid button again out of pure frustration, and lo and behold, my gear shifted! Now I could push a little more. So I keep on pedaling and chatting with people passing me. At least being passed helped kill the time! Oh look, another embarassing turnaround. Seriously should have at least taken a couple of spin classes cause this bike thing is starting to hurt.

Finally, finally off the bike. So happy. Grabbed my water bottle with Heed. Did I mention I can't drink on the bike? Waycross Bank and Trust had signs every few miles with giant letters: HYDRATE. Mocking me.

Grabbed my hat and hit the grassy path again. Now the problem isn't so much my shoes as it is my legs. I heard someone say they had dead legs. When I heard that in the past, I assumed it meant your legs were exhausted. Yeah, that's not exactly it. They are exhausted, but the problem is more that they don't know how to move properly and for at least a half of a mile, you can't convince them that running is a natural thing. If I were ever so reckless as to eat right after getting a filling, I assume it would be the same way- having to teach yourself how to chew. I felt like I was teaching myself how to not move in such a jerky way.

We ran down the same course, so more hills. The really fast people are headed towards us. Everyone yelled encouragement to each other, which I thought was very fun. That was highly unusual- most races I've done people are either extremely quiet and listening to iPods or they are all out crazy like Disney. One of the really fast guys reached out to high five me- don't know how fast he was moving, but that hurt! My first mile was 8:15, the last one 7:52. I was pretty proud to pull off an under 8 minute mile at the end! As I was headed towards the line, I could see the clock at 1:19:xx. Having no clue of a goal time, I decided I'd be good with under 1:20. Final time: 1:19:33.

My time was good enough for 5th overall girl, and 1st in my age group (40-44, excuse me!?) I was pleased with the race, but I think duathlons may have just landed in the BTDT category for me...

So now, my been there, done that category consists of: bridge runs, triathlons, and duathlons. I thought I'd like it better because of the whole "no swim" thing, and I am certainly grateful there wasn't a swim, but I just am not that good on my bike. And really, I don't want to take the time to get better on my bike. I still like it, but it's not really my thing right now. I'm scared of riding on the roads, I'm scared of the fancy pedals, I'm scared of why I would need a helmet. I may very well want to ride more in the spring when I'm tired of running or have met my goals or most likely, am totally injured...

Oh, and my Newtons were a huge hit. Several people asked about them, and one older guy said "I remember you. Those pink shoes blazed past me and I never caught them again." Can you say race highlight!?

New Newtons!

So, I just retired my yellow Newtons with approximately 490 miles on them.

They cost about $150.00/pair. What's that make their per mile running cost? I'm going with about 30 cents per mile.

The Asics I bought from the running store?

They cost about $80.00. A bargain, right? Well, I demoted them to walking only status at 6 miles cause they almost crippled me. So what's their per mile running cost? Oh, about $13.33 per mile.

And people look at me funny for buying Newtons and think they're too expensive? Sure, if they don't work for you, that's one thing, but I didn't even think mine needed retiring until I realized how close I was to 500 miles. (Speaking of which, I'm going to have to run the last ten miles in the old yellow ones just for closure).

Anyway, I now have a new pair of pink Newtons for people to either covet or mock. With any luck, they'll be blazing past the mockers.

Harry's Munchkin Super Kidz Tri

Race Report: Super Kidz Tri!!!

Harry did his first tri this weekend at the ripe age of 4. I was worried about everything- he'd think people were laughing at him, he'd freak out in the pool since he'd only had 2 weeks of lessons, he had a new bike, etc.

Race morning: Got the baby to the sitter and packed up Harry and all of his stuff. He got to use all my tri gear (fancy water bottle, goggles, helmet, etc). We made it to the Y and set up his transition area. We picked up his swag bag and he got body marked. Oddly, he was mostly interested in the ruler in the bag...

Transition.

We went to the pool early just so he could check it out again. When anyone asked if he was ready, he said "oh, I'm ready!" He put on his required swim vest. We waited in the bleachers for Ted and Emma to show up. (And when they did, I laughed at the look of panic on Ted's face when he suddenly thought he'd forgotten to bring the baby.)

Harry lined up. They had all the 4 year olds go out together after explaining that this race was about completion and that they should take their time and be safe and have fun. Harry's lane was by the wall. The race starts. The boy sprints down the handicapped ramp in the water and does a giant leap. He comes up sputtering, but starts swimming. We're following along the side of the pool as everyone is cheering. The kids are all pretty close. Turns out Harry is better in the water than his mother. He makes it to the end with no problems. Ted hauls him out, and we're off to transition.

We throw on a shirt and shoes and head down the stairs to the track. (They call it a track, but it's really just a vaguely oval shaped asphalt path). I put on Harry's helmet and helped him on his bike. He hasn't done much riding since it seems to rain every afternoon, but he gets it moving. The four year olds are required to have training wheels. I keep my hand on his back and we go around the first lap. And then, as everyone from my track club is cheering at the end of the first lap, we have our first mishap. I don't understand how it could happen with training wheels, but Harry goes down hard sideways and drags the bike with him. I tossed him off the bike, picked it up, put him on, and we took off again. I would have been freaked out by such a truly spectacular fall, but all he said was "you know, that kind of hurt..."

So for the second lap, I ran holding Harry's handlebars. Ted ran over to record him, and Harry just yelled "meet me at the finish line, Dad!" Emma was cheering, which we could just hear over all the commotion. And we are back in transition- yes, off the bike and I can stand upright!

Helmet off, and we're running. It's one lap around for the run. Harry goes out at a good clip, but not a sprint. He's able to maintain his speed all the way around and doesn't walk. The last few yards Emma joins us. I let her run him in.

And now Harry has his medal (which he put with my medals- how cute is that?) He's got big plans for future races. There's a 1 mile fun run this Saturday that he really wants to do.



The thing I liked best about Harry's race was that even though he wasn't the fastest, he was just thrilled the whole time. And I learned something about my racing- worried about people laughing at him? worried about the swim and the new bike? Those fears didn't apply to Harry at all- they're my usual race day fears that I was putting on to his race... weird, huh?

So, this weekend I have the following races lined up:
1) Saturday: Duathlon- 2 mile run, 14? mile bike, 2 mile run. I haven't been on my bike in forever but I wanted to do this race to encourage local events... it's going to hurt!
2) Saturday: 1 mile fun run with Harry and maybe Emma;
3) Saturday: may run a 5k with a friend who's a newbie runner- not sure yet.
Crazy.