Sunday, October 20, 2013

Harvest Run = Redemption

So, do any of you remember my last two runs? The fun Neon Run and then the one I came in dead fucking last? When I say "dead fucking last", I really mean "long after the old people and small children finished".

Well that was shameful and I knew I had to redeem myself. So I signed up for the Harvest Run. I've done this one before and they have a really amazing course, gorgeous along the shore of Lake Superior, and the finish is at Fitger's Brewhouse which means I'll get a burger and fries at the end. So worth it. Well I signed up for it, but Olivia said she wanted to sign up for the kid run too, which was only 1K, and I thought- awesome mommy and daughter bonding experience!

So I signed us both up. And then did not train. At all. Like a MORON. I seriously felt like not even going to the damn race because I was so grossly unprepared but I thought, no.... I paid fees, I'm getting a shirt, and Olivia wanted to go. So we went.

While waiting for the train to come (because you get to take the train to the start- pretty cool), I saw this lady behind me. She has what appears to be a hand made headband that had "Duck Commander" written on it? I think it's something to do with Duck Dynasty, but she doesn't have a beard so it's odd. Then after I saw the guy dressed as a storm trooper, I think that maybe they are the only two that thought this was a dress up run? Um, no. It is not a dress up run.
While in line for the train, Olivia and I posed in our shirts next to the lake. Freezing. It was freezing.
Then we got on the train. Only I would be getting off, but your family/spectators can ride and watch the start. They get dropped back off at the finish, and Matt said by the time they got there the first people were finishing the race. CRAZY.
As it turns out, I had signed up to walk this race instead of run. Which was fine because oh hell no I was in no shape to run a full 5K. But I only had two goals for this race: do not finish last being the important one, and then finish before the storm trooper. If I got beat by a storm trooper, I should just stop all together. 
 So off we went. It turns out there were a bunch of walkers. All of which were incredibly slow. Like I got to the half mile mark and I could no longer even see them. So then I thought, I'm just going to do a light jog. It was basically a fast walk with more arm movement. And I didn't die. I felt pretty good and had to really slow down in some spots, but overall I felt like I was booking it. I was actually passing people who were full fledged running who looked like maybe they weren't doing so hot.

And before I knew it, I was done. I thought I had gotten my best time but no, my best time ever for a 5K was 41 minutes and some seconds, but this was a respectable finish for me.
I didn't even feel super exhausted at the end, either. I felt pretty good. The best part? Is that I won. 
I actually won FIRST PLACE for the walkers. Which, you might scoff at that, but I have never won first place in anything athletic, ever. (Unless you could the time I won first place in a baton tossing competition but it was blind luck that I caught that toss and it would never be repeated again.) I didn't know they were giving out prizes for walkers, so when I heard my name called, I may or may not have yelled, "Holy shit! That's ME!" A bunch of guys sitting on the deck of Fitgers laughed at me, but it was a big deal. I got a medal AND a gift card which I'm going to use to buy new shoes. But it was pretty awesome. Oh- AND I passed the storm trooper. But a LOT. Phew.
 After my race, I got Olivia ready for hers. She has done a few running things but a 1K was further than she's gone and because I don't understand the metric system, I told her the wrong distance. Whoops.
 But she is an awesome little kid and she just ran her little heart out. She took off and she said not only did she not fall (she's a bit clumsy) but she only stopped and walked for a few seconds and took off again.
 There's my girl crossing the line.
 And afterwards, she said she felt good and wants to do it again. So every time I'm racing and there's a kid option I'll see if she wants to do it. I'm trying to do things to promote being healthy versus exercising to lose weight with her.

Overall it was a really nice October morning. We both got some exercise in, didn't totally freeze but came close, and had the boys cheering us on. I haven't run since (shocker) but it's days like this that make me wish I'd just stick with it. My next challenge is running in the cold. I know people do it and can handle it but I don't do well with cold and I wish I could afford a gym membership just so I could run indoors during the really long winter here. I was set to go out this morning but it was 38 degrees and raining. No thanks.

6 comments:

Shirley said...

Great job! I am sucking ass in October! I'm not even close to getting 31 miles in.

Unknown said...

You go girl. I have the St. Jude Grizzlies House 5k in December and I haven't honestly run once in like months. It's kind of disgusting. The worst part is I accidentally signed up under the "Heros" group, which basically means that you're going to fundraise a shit ton and they've been sending out reminders for the Saturday morning (7AM) workouts in the park since July. I'm sorry WHAT? I may or may not bitch out on it, and just consider my $30 registration fee my donation. It's just like way too intense and way more than a normal 5k.

Or maybe I should just get off my lazy ass and actually run a few days a week. Probably the better option.


<3
carelessly graceful

ComfyMom~Stacey said...

Congrats on a first place win! Where the did the stormtrooper place?

I can't run. Running is the punishment for every other sport out there and I can't make myself be punished when I have done nothing wrong. :)

Tamara said...

Way to be awesome and win an award!

That's awesome that Olivia joined you, we don't have a lot of races around here with an option smaller htan a 5k for kids but if we did I'd totally be forcing my kid to do it as "quality time together" because I'm that mom.

Julie H said...

WTG!! I love the kid runs. I'm going to try to get Trevor to do a couple soon but he's bigger so he should really be doing a 5k not a little kid run I guess. He likes to go run with me sometimes but I really like to go by myself so I don't always encourage it which is bad!

Steff said...

A couple weeks ago I did the Rock N Glow 5k and the whole time your voice (or what I imagine in your voice) was going through my head hahaha But here's the funny thing: I only got .7 miles in because it was the dumbest thing ever. It was in the woods, in the dark, with zero moon, and all we had were glow sticks to light the path of over a thousand people. It was the stupidest idea ever! Everyone was falling, which I did in the first quarter mile, ripping my leggings, bleeding all over, and have massive bruises on my knees. I got back up and kept running with my friend, but she ended up tripping, possibly breaking her ankle, so we had to get rescued by a truck. It was insane and so dumb, yet so funny.