even if I should run in the longest race
pic via alanvThis year's Great Race challenges came about in a few different stages. The first one was last spring, when yet another family dinner conversation went the way of how I wanted the boys to get more exercise. So I said that I was signing them up for the Great Race 5k in the fall, which gave them about 4 months to train up to it. I planned to run with them for encouragement. But then I wanted to do more for myself, so I signed up for the 10k race in addition. 15k was a new daily record for me! So I had something to train for.
Then about a month ago at the Pretty Good Race, bubblingbeebles came up to me and proposed running a three-legged race. I agreed on the condition that we could make it work in practice runs. So after a series of practice runs and various attempts to tie our ankles without causing too much discomfort we figured it was possible.
So today was race day! All of the boys ran a fantastic 5k, finishing in 34-37 minutes. And after complaining all summer about it, both jboys spoke sentences this evening that started with the words "next year I want to run...." Bwahaha, I've infected them!
After the 5k I met up with my other race half, braided his hair to match mine, tied our legs together, and we were off. We got a lot of encouragement and amazement on the course from other runners, which was incredibly goofy and fun. Practice paid off and we didn't fall down or hurt ourselves. My earlier 5k caught up with me and by about mile 5 of the 10k I was running off of mostly desperation and inertia and not wanting to let my partner down, but we successfully managed to finish running, in 1:08:21, which is just fine.
Now my knees and toes are sore from normal running, and my right thigh feels pretty painfully stretched from the leg tie, but nothing is broken and I think it was overall a pretty successful morning, and hopefully there exist some interesting pictures somewhere.
The afternoon xuth and I went to the Pittsburgh RenFaire for a few hours, which was cold and rainy until it turned nice and sunny, and I ate an entire turkey leg because I deserved it. Yum.