A Good Weekend

Just to shake things up a bit, I ran a 5K on the Fourth. Eric was on the race committee for this new race sponsored by our Y. He helped will all aspects, answering questions and making suggestions based on race experience. However, I'd say his main focus was working out the route. Eric and I worked on packet stuffing Thursday, Eric worked on course marking most of the morning on Friday, then that evening we worked at packet pick-up, Saturday we were at the Y at 5:00 am to ferry supplies to the fairgrounds, help with day of race registration and packet pick up, and final course marking. It was a fun and busy couple of days.

I haven't run a 5K in about three years, and I really didn't plan to run this one. I thought I'd volunteer at the event instead. However, when we were stuffing packets on Thursday, Phil, the executive director, talked me into running the race. I'm really glad I did!

We had 600 participants in this first-year race. Pretty good, huh? A local church was co-sponsoring with the Y and the city to put on an all day event. The day started with the race, and was followed by a festival in the fairgrounds, with fireworks that night. Race entry included a technical shirt and entrance to the fireworks. They are hoping that this becomes an annual community event - my guess is it will, as it seemed to be a big hit.

Riley signed up to run it a while back, and come race morning, decided to run it with me. We started off with Jessica and Barb, and it wasn't long till Riley had us all laughing. He displayed the same Mad Monkey tendencies of his Dad - running here and there, leaping hydrants, hiding behind parked cars and popping out, and generally being silly. I think it generated some sympathy for me, once Jessica and Barb realized that I live with those goofball antics all the time, and not just from Eric, but from Riley too!

Riley was encouraging me to run faster and I kept picking up my pace. There's one short steep hill in the otherwise flat course, and once we reached it, I told him I was "pulling out my marathon card" - in other words, using last Saturday's marathon as an excuse to walk the hill. Once we reached the top, we picked up the pace again. As we entered the fairgrounds for the last mile, Riley said that we should sprint. I had to break it to him that I already was sprinting. He responded by announcing that he would be my rabbit, running just ahead of me and forcing me to keep up. We decided to skip the last walk break since we could see the finish line - giving me a last mile pace of 9:14. Our overall time was 31:48 - a PR for me. And it was good enough to net me 3rd in my age group!

Upon reflection, what I really took away from the day was a sense of pride and satisfaction. But not for what you might think. It wasn't for running the race or gaining a PR. Instead, it was for the young man I spent the morning with. I thought it was simply wonderful that he wanted to hang out with me both before and after the race, and that he wanted to run it with me. Imagine, a 20 year old wanting to hang with Mom! He is growing up, and we have a great relationship, and it is a pleasure to spend time with him. What more could I ask? I also want to mention here that Cat had the same experience with her son. We are two lucky Moms.

Then to top off my weekend, we got a phone call from Web. He's been really good about calling us every week or so. Life is sweet...