Awesome Saturday and Murray Moonlight Run 5k

Saturday was such a perfect day.

It started out with getting to sleep in a little bit and having a nice leisurely morning with pumpkin pancakes (recipe coming soon...).

In the afternoon, Pete and I took the kids on a little hike at that park we found this spring. It was really fun, and George fell asleep on Pete's back. It was so cute!

When we got back to the car, my dad called to tell me he was at our house. Fifteen minutes later we were home and the kids were all happy and climbing on their grandpa, like usual.

We all had ice cream cones.

Then I put the kids to work doing their chores while I worked on cleaning the kitchen and Pete and my dad worked on putting bead board up in the basement bathroom. I can't wait till it's finished, it's going to look so nice!

A quick dinner of Papa Murphy's pizza with Root Beer and peanut butter Checks mix. (Such a healthy day!) I actually just had 1 piece of pizza then had some oatmeal with peanut butter and bannana. It was weird preparing for a night race, and I felt like I should eat what I'm used to eating before I run.

I got George to bed, and Pete and I headed out for the Murray Moonlight Run. We picked up two of my friends from my little running group, and got there quite early.

Here we are before the race, trying to figure out what to do with our glow necklaces that didn't have clasps. I ended up putting mine through my sports bra in the back so you could see it through my shirt. I have no idea how it looked, but I figured that way at least no one would run into me!

(First pony tails since I cut my hair! Whoop!)

I kind of wanted to shoot for 27 minutes, but I didn't really know if that was possible since we were running in the dark. There were volunteers with flashlights at the turns and lights at a few places, but other than that it was pretty dark.

I didn't bring a light or anything, but my eyes adjusted pretty well and I felt fine running. It was just hard when I'd come upon someone with flashing lights on their costume, or a headlamp because then all could see was the light, and my eyes would have to adjust again after I passed them. This actually gave me more incentive to pass people though!

It was so fun being able to pass people the whole time! I'm really not used to being able to pass people, especially in a triathlon since running is my weakest of the 3 sports and everyone I get ahead of on the swim and bike pass me on the run. This time I'd see someone in front of me and work on getting past them. It was nice to be doing the passing for a change, it made me feel good!

The first mile was an out and back past the finish line so I got to see Pete again after just a few minutes. Then we went the other way and kind of looped around. It was all on trails by the river and it was a really cool place to run.



I tried to push myself, but it was hard not being able to see my Garmin to tell what my pace was to know if I should push it more or not. I just had fun with it, though and tried to go by feel. When I passed the volunteer at mile 2 I did a fist pump and wondered where that came from. Soon after that I started hurting a little. But I reminded myself that I only had a mile left so I tried to stay strong.

I finished in 28:23 which is faster than my last 5k which took me 29:09. So it wasn't 27, but I'm totally happy with it!

Afterwards, they had pumpkin pie for the runners, and it was really good! We sat in the grass and stretched while we ate it. Pete was so great to come with me, I know it wasn't that fun for him, and like he said, we spent more time waiting around and getting ready for the race then the actual race. That's the trouble with 5ks, but it was fun and I'm glad I got to be there for both of my friends' first race.

We're excited to do another 5k in the daylight to really see what we can do!

Does anyone know of any good Christmas/New Years 5ks around here?