Race Takeaway: Setting a healthy family example is such a wonderful responsibility.

The We Care Twin Cities race weekend includes a 5K Friday night and 10K and Half Marathon Saturday morning.

This race weekend almost didn’t happen for us. Chase was sick with hand/foot/mouth all week. She had just a couple spots and it never spread worse, thank goodness. But it was clear she was not herself and wanted to be held constantly day and night. It made for a very long week, which included me sleeping sitting up for 6 days straight. Needless to say I was drained. We just took each day as it was and decided if Chase wasn’t feeling well we wouldn’t be running. Thursday her spots were gone and she seemed to be getting back to herself. By Friday morning she seemed back to good and we took her to daycare to see how she did for the day. She had a really good day so we figured we would give the racing a try. However, I was signed up for the half marathon and so was Drew. We decided that we would downgrade our races to the 10K and all run together instead.

Friday’s packet pickup was at GE Park with the Kids Fun Run and 5K on the Constitution Trail. Packet pick up was easy and quick. This race revolves around energy management and environmentally friendly choices. Which meant that the race would also look for improvements, including having trophies from recycled/donated awards from any sport.

Also, the We Care Twin Cities races would have the Hydrapouch for water stops, instead of cups.

I’m all for environmentally friendly opportunities, but I’m not yet sold on these as a viable solution. Each runner received one in their race packet. I haven’t looked into the carbon footprint to make one of these, but it just seems that this versus paper cups that this would be less friendly if you don’t use this for more than one race. I can’t imagine how many of these will get tossed in the trash and never used. Also, this is a self serve option, which seems depending on the size of the race would make for congested water stops. While that was not the case during our races, we brought our own water since we had the stroller to stow it in.

So my question to you is, have you used these before in a race? What do you think? Why do you love them or hate them? Do you think these will become more popular at races?

So back to the 5K….as I was saying packet pickup was a breeze and we waited for our race to start at 6pm by watching the kids fun run. It was so awesome to witness all these families out with their children encouraging a healthy lifestyle of running. We got to see some of our friends with all of their kids and it’s just a fun site to see the whole family taking part. It’s going to be so fun to see Chase running in these races and getting her medal. 🙂

Us before the race that I posted on twitter.

The 5K was a small field of people and we were the only stroller. We started in the very back. It proved challenging because the path of the Constitution Trail isn’t wide enough for even the smallest race, so it gets congested easily. We carefully passed people when possible and finally got out in the open to set our own pace by Mile 1. The course winds through Tipton Park, which has sometimes caused race path direction confusion (more on that for Saturday’s race), but they had this course well marked with volunteers pointing the way.

It was a perfect night for running and we really enjoyed this race. I pushed as hard as I could, even though I hadn’t been running and was so exhausted from the past week. I was able to fight through it and come out with 25:42, which was an improvement on my previous post-baby 5Ks and good enough for 1st in my age group and 3rd in Rob’s age group.

Again, Chase slept the whole way while running. I think she really enjoys our running time. She usually looks mesmerized by the trees, sky, and breeze and then peacefully closes her eyes and starts to snooze. 🙂

We didn’t stick around for awards though. We haven’t done an evening race with Chase before and it was definitely getting close to her bedtime. So we got her home, fed, and ready for bed.

Stats:

25:42

8:17 Pace

Overall: 15/76

F: 5/44

F 35-39: 1/7