Weekend + 10 Mile Race Recap

The 10 mile race is behind me! Woo hoo! It was my first race since the Twin Cities Marathon in 2015. Since then I have had hip surgery to repair a labral tear and 2 c-sections. My body has been through a lot but it's good to know that I can still consider myself a "runner." I had lost that part of my identity since getting pregnant with Paul. It feels really good to have that label back. I have my neighbor to thank for getting me back to running. She gently encouraged me to start running again this summer and threw out the idea of doing a 10k, 10 mile or 1/2 marathon this fall. If it wasn't for her, I don't think I would be running yet and certainly not 10 miles! But she helped me see that I COULD get back to running. 

We had a somewhat full weekend! On Saturday morning, Phil got our car serviced and got groceries while I watched the boys. We are looking to buy a Toyota RAV-4 Prime so it was good for him to talk to a sales person about the car market. My friend and co-worker recommended we work with the car broker he worked with last year so that guy is looking for inventory for us in different states but it was still good to get another read on the market from a sales person. Hopefully we'll have a new car in 3 months or so? Our Camry has served us well but we are ready for something slightly bigger. We got such a great deal on our Camry that we'll almost be able to sell it for the price we paid for it. It only had 30k miles on it despite being 6 years old. This is our primary car so that gives you an idea of how little we drive!

After lunch on Saturday, I took the boys for haircuts. It was Will's first haircut. His hair was getting so long and unruly. We have family pictures in 2 weeks so I wanted to give it some time to grow after the haircut  in case it didn't turn out great. I feel like it takes a couple of haircuts to figure out what works well for little boys.

Our usual happy guy SCREAMED through most of the haircut! I took a couple of pictures at the beginning before he lost it. The stylist did a great job. He looks so different and so much older!!

After we got home from the haircuts, my parents arrived! They were in town to see my nephew's football game on Friday night so they stayed with us on Saturday night. My mom helped me make a yummy lasagna and Paul and Nana made pumpkin bars. Here's a pic of Paul tasting the peanut butter. He tasted so much that my mom had to add more!

We hadn't seen my parents since August so it was great to catch up. My mom held Will lots! He is very smiley, but not when you want to take his picture of course! 

After the boys went to bed, we played some cards with my parents before turning in early.

Sunday morning came much too early! Paul unfortunately had a night terror on Saturday night and it took a long time and several returns to his bedroom to get him back to sleep. So I was "running" on 5 hours of sleep. 

Katie's husband was our uber driver for the day as he dropped us off in Minneapolis and picked us up in St. Paul afterwards. The race started at 7 so we got downtown around 6:45. They did a great job spacing people out more than usual and required masks in the corrals so overall, I think they did a great job keeping people safe. 

The first 4 miles went well and then we hit the uphill segment of the course. I felt really good when I took this picture around 4.5 miles when we stopped so my neighbor could use the bathroom.

After that, it was a bit of a slog and I was so ready to be done. I kept translating the distance left into runs in our neighborhood (the distance left is a loop around Lake Harriet... now it's a run to Lynnhurst park... etc etc). 

But I did it. I felt a little embarrassed about my time (our pace ended up being about 11 min/mile). That is so very slow compared to how fast I used to run. I mean, our time was about 1:50 and my last 1/2 marathon was 1:52! But I had to remind myself I wasn't lactating during my previous races and I wasn't waking up 3-5 times/night (that's how bad it's been lately with both boys having colds and Paul transitioning to his big boy bed). This is a different season of life, and thus, a different pace. One of my good friends said - 'Hey, you ran 10 miles and most people haven't ran that much all year!' That was just what I needed to hear to remind myself that 10 miles in itself, regardless of the pace, is something to be proud of!

I'm looking forward to continuing to run and will appreciate not having the pressure of needing to run X miles this week. Races are very motivating but even pre-kids, I was always happy when they were behind me and I could relax a bit. My goal is to continue to run around 3 times/week until the colder weather hits!