twice the fun

Whenever I run a race, I'm always amazed at, not so much the fast, seasoned runners, but at the average runners who are really putting themselves out there, running slower than everybody else, undeterred by their time, and with a fire in their eyes to finish.

My mom has never been a runner. That's why this is so amazing! She ran her first 5k Saturday! Look at us...giddy with anticipation.

Sarah was kind enough to take pictures of us...here is the start. We weren't at the front, in case you were trying to find us.

We're not in here either, but Sarah was taking a bunch of shots just in case. See anyone you know? Me either.

It was so fun to run with my mom. We were solidly in the back, but it was fun not to care. We went our own pace and just followed the crowd. And granted, I haven't been running with my GPS (because it's packed), but I feel like with all the running I did this summer I've got a pretty good handle on what 3 miles feels like.

Which is why it was so odd that it started feeling like we'd gone a little too far to turn around and come back and have it be 3 miles, but whatever, we just kept following the crowd.

Every 5 minutes or so we'd look up and see my dad pulled over to the side of the road to steal a picture of us. Mike and Barbara did a drive-by shout and wave--it was quite an event, people.

When we finally turned onto the trail (surely on our way back), I started to think about where the trail branches off to take us back to the finish line, but as hard as I thought about it, I couldn't figure out how. But I hadn't been on that trail for a while so maybe they put in a new trail somewhere...I didn't know, I just kept following the crowd.

As the trail wound itself around (so that we were now going in the opposite direction of the finish line) we saw our first mile marker.

Mile 4.

Evidently we started with the 1/2 marathon.

With this realization, I began to wonder if Mom would finish. She did, after all, go a lot farther than she had bargained for already. When my dad offered to take her home she said, "NO! I'm CROSSING THAT FINISH LINE!" Gotta love her.

So we continued on, taking a few discreet little short cuts along the way, and grumbling about how "after 27 years you'd THINK they'd be a little more organized", but at the same time realizing that we were probably the only ones who had made that mistake, so the blame, most likely, rested squarely upon our sweaty, heaving shoulders. Because there was no way at this point that we could meet up with the 5k runners who were by now on a completely different course altogether.

But really, we were laughing and making fun of ourselves, and wondering how we would look, me and my mom--her in her Mayor's walk t-shirt (Lean, green walking machine:))--crossing the finish line with all of those really fast runners, and getting actually a pretty respectable half marathon time.

Hard core for sure.

We finished in 1:30

My fastest 1/2 marathon time ever.

And I'm taking it!

But my mom is the real hero, getting a little more than she bargained for, but running most of the way and accomplishing something she never thought possible.

A 10K.

WAY TO GO MOM!