Four Seasons Cool 5K

My best girlfriend, Marni, talked me into doing the Four Seasons Cool 5k early this morning. I don't know how I did it. I haven't run since my brother came for a visit earlier this month, but it was a lot of fun! And supported a good cause, Baylor Cancer research and treatments. I ran for my daddy and his current battle with cancer.

We picked up our numbers and shirts...

...we even decided to get a timing chip, even though we assumed we'd be walking most of the race!

Then we psyched ourselves up to actually do the 5k and not just jump on the Family Fun Run 1 miler that was about to take place. It was real tempting.

Christopher was nice enough (dripping in sarcasm) to take pictures of us warming up with the overly chipper aerobics trainer just before our race started.

Marni and I made a pack to just take it easy (since this was her first race and I hadn't been running for a month) and try to finish under 35-40 minutes. The course was a little bit more hilly than we would have liked but slow and steady wins the race, right?!

We started running which for the first 1/2 mile was up hill and didn't stop for a short walk until after 1.5 miles. We kept our eye on a few people, you know the ones that find in your race and think to yourself "If anything, I have to at least beat that person", which kept the motivation to keep going. It worked great. Although we couldn't keep up with the 80 year old man in the purple shorts! He's die hard! Of course we knew we were no match for all those 12 year olds! Yes, they were finishing in 18 minutes!

After a brief fast walk we charged right back up another tough hill which at this point was really burning the thighs, but we kept running and then once the finish line was approaching we picked up the pace. I was really proud of our race b.c Marni had run more without walking breaks in this race than she has ever before and I was able to not pass out having taken a month long hiatus!!

As we approached the finish line we noticed the timer was nearing the 40 minute mark so we hit the concrete hard core and made sure we finished under 40 minutes...which was our goal! YAY!! In fact, we were so awesome, Christopher missed coming out to find us b.c we were so fast!! He wasn't expecting us until after 45 minutes or so! SO THERE!!

Here's Marni and I after the race and after we picked up all our free food and drink (the best part next to free T-shirts)! We went and found Christopher looking for us out on the course. Despite starting the race at a nippy 60 degrees, we were red hot afterwards!

While we were racing the kids kept busy. Here Caden was head of our group security.

Reese and Gavin played "bumper cars" with each others bodies!

There were some really fun bounce houses that Gavin and Caden played in the entire time we were running.

Caden and Gavin had the bouncy obstacle courses to themselves! Those are the best!

Reese also did some pumpkin decorating crafts.

I'm so glad Marni talked me into doing this race. I have wanted to get back into doing 5k's (seeing as I run 3 or more miles when I workout anyway) but it's always sooo much more fun when you have a racing buddy. I'm crazy excited that you want to be buddies with me!! We have decided we are going to do a race a month. Next month's race is the Turkey Trot that we do every year (here and here) and then December will bring either the Jingle Bell Run on the 13th (Rockwall) or the Jog'r Egg Nog'r on the 20th (White Rock Lake). And maybe the Snowman Shuffle on the 10th of January? All 5k's of course! Anyone want to join us?