Columbia’s Relay for Life 5k recap – A family thing

Another week is beginning to wind down around here and that means that we have another race day coming up on Saturday. The Okatoma Festival River Run 5k is Jason’s hometown run. He calls it his “Super Bowl” of races mainly because it’s a race he’s run in since the very first one which was about 15 years ago and because this race usually signifies the end of our racing season. (Although we are kicking around another race or two in the next few weeks this time.) Last year’s Okatoma race was awful for me. If you go back and read my very first blog, you’ll see that, besides being a new runner (only 3 months), I was injured with a stress fracture too. Obviously, I thought I only had horrible shin splints and ran it anyway (not a wise choice). This race on Saturday will be a sort of redemption for me, which puts a little pressure on me, to say the least. I know I can run faster than I could last year. I’m not in pain. So, now it’s time to put my positive thinking cap on and start focusing. I had been doing hill training pretty faithfully in the last few weeks but I didn’t do hills last week and I didn’t do them this week but I’m going to trust my body, my legs. I’m thinking it’ll be an appropriate race to listen to “Tick, Tick Boom” by The Hives for a little bit of motivation: “You know I’ve done it before and I can do it some more, I’ve got my eye on the score…”  The last few days have been really cool in the mornings. Hopefully, that cool weather will hold out for Saturday morning (even if it’s just until 8:30)! I’m just going to keep visualizing a great race.  I’ll update you in a few days on how it went. 🙂

The race last Saturday in my hometown was a good one as far as race courses go and the weather was really pleasant. It’s also fun getting to go stay the night with my parents and visiting with them. There were 61 people in the Relay for Life 5k put on by The Columbian Progress. Our oldest son, Tyler joined us for this race. My sister-in-law, Donna even drove over and ran in it with us too. She’s only been running for a couple of months now and is doing great! I keep telling her that I’m glad we’re in different age groups because she’s getting faster very quickly and I’d have to start worrying about some serious competition. We actually ran together for a large part of the race and finished pretty close together. I did a better job on this race of pacing myself and not feeling like I was going to collapse towards the end. I had just enough energy saved up to finish out my last km really strong. My time was 30:32 and Donna’s time was 31:16. She’s already reaching times that took me nearly a year to even get close to!! There’s no telling how fast she’ll be in a year. Like I said, it’s just a good thing we’re in different age groups! 🙂

Donna and me in the background of this picture. (Pink shirt & green shirt) *This picture was taken by The Columbian Progress

Donna approaching the finish line!

Jason running in with me towards the finish line.( I don't even know what to say about my hair that day!!)

Almost to the finish line! (I loved this picture for only one reason - both of my feet are off the ground!! Woohoo!)

Jason had a great race that day. His finish time was 22:25 and he finished 3rd overall!! He’s never done that before so it was a huge deal. I’m so proud of him!! He’s been working really hard. Tyler had a really great finishing time too. He hadn’t run in 2 weeks and still had a time of 27:49. I think he has the potential to be really fast with just a little practice.

Here's Tyler getting ready to cross the finish line. *Picture taken by The Columbian Progress

Top 3 Finishers Overall *Picture taken by The Columbian Progress

The disappointing thing about this race is that after paying $30/entry fee, they didn’t have anything but water (no bananas or oranges) afterward and no awards for age groups…actually no awards for anyone. I know it was more of a charity race but it’s nice for runners that have worked hard and done well to be given just a little something to recognize it. (Even a certificate printed out would have been ok.) That’s just my opinion though. I’m not much of a complainer about races so as Forrest Gump would say, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Besides those things, it was fun and of course, helped out towards a really good cause which is Relay for Life.

My best buddy, Stephanie, showed up to cheer us on. (I somehow got Jason's number stuck on my skirt when I gave him a hug, lol)

Jason and me after the race.

Tyler and me

I received my new Nike GPS watch in the mail 2 days ago so I plan on blogging about it soon and letting y’all know what my thoughts are on it. So far, I think it’s going to work great. I still haven’t gotten everything figured out on it but I will. I’m definitely going to miss my Nike lady’s encouragement in my ear but I do like the GPS.

More to come on the watch….