May is running season

For the past 6 months I’ve been training for the Delaware half marathon, which was May 16th. Now this has been hard to do due to my schedule, but I have this group of ladies I run with early in the morning (4:45am) that have been very supportive. Now they are not the fastest group, but they care to make sure you make it to the end.

Now I was lucky enough to get a hold of a running bid for the Broad St. 10 miler. This race was sold out within a week – 30,000 runners!!! So on Wednesday before the race I found out that someone couldn’t run the race on Twitter and by the end of the day I had the bid. Then Sunday I ran the race. It was very flat and straight. It was the largest race I’ve ever run and lots of fun to be in, but boy did I struggle. I went out too fast and mentally struggled the whole time. The race started in North Philadelphia (way up there) and ended at the Navy Pier. There were bands and groups of people screaming and cheering along the way. So amazing to have that inspiration the whole way because I needed it!!! My feet at the end of the race were beat up, and I couldn’t walk any more. I had to walk a mile back to my car, and somehow I made it.

So that race really was a training device for the half marathon, which happened two weeks later. Karl and I were running this race, which I was excited to do. We planned to run 10 minute pace, but after 3 miles I had to slow down and Karl was off. This race was better mentally than the 10miler, but rougher on the body because of all the hills on the course. I am not a good hill runner and really slowed down on them. What’s even worse is that there’s a BIG hill at the last mile and it really just kicks you. But after 2 hours and 30 minutes I finished!!! Karl came in at 2 hours and 11 minutes. Not bad for someone who really didn’t train. We both were exhausted and somehow got home.

Now anyone who has kids knows that you don’t get a break from kids even though you need one. We both struggled all day walking and playing with the kids. Luckily Luke took a nap so Karl got to rest and I just had to take Carlita shopping for food. Really rough, but we made it.

So we’re done for the season. We’ll keep running for pleasure, but not train for anything. We really wanted to do a triathlon, but with this year’s transitions we’re going to do that next year. But the best thing I think is that the kids really notice that we work out and try to be healthy. Carlita is always saying “Mommy when are you going to work out?” or “Mommy we have to eat healthy”. Yes we do honey. For that reason we started a garden out back and have tons of lettuce to eat (too much actually!). Hopefully our habits will be embedded into the kids for their future.