The Last Weekend!

This weekend is officially the last before I meet my new kinder kiddos and a new kind of race starts - the race to get them ready for 1st grade academically, socially and emotionally. I am immensely excited to meet my new group, as we will be implementing more of our mass customized learning program with them and have tons of great ideas planned (and they seem like an awesome group!).

It was a busy weekend of back to school shopping, lunch preparation and finishing things up in both my classroom and my husbands. It was also a busy weekend running, with the Color Me Rad race on Saturday in honor of Melissa's upcoming wedding, and the L/A Bridge Run 5k on Sunday.

Color Me Rad...where to start, where to start. So, we were in the first wave, suppose to start at 9:00am. Alice and I left with plenty of time to spare, but got stuck behind a supposed accident about 1.5 miles away from the race venue with an hour and ten minutes to go. We did not get out of traffic until 8:59 (no joke). We parked about 2 miles from the actual race start and literally booked it like bats out of hell to try to meet Melissa and the "running bachelorette party" group.

During our 2 mile sprint to the race, I remember thinking how grateful I was for my fitness. I suppose that sometimes I take for granted my ability to participate in races (even though I have literally worked my butt off to do so), but this was a race of a different kind.

Alice and I never found the finish (where our race numbers were waiting with a friend), as we saw a color station and a staff member. We explained to him how we were looking for our bride and missed our start. He radioed to the race directors, who offered us a start in a later wave. We told him thank you, but we really wanted to run with our bride and party and asked him if we could just run the course backwards (without our numbers) to find them and join him. He agreed and even offered to hose us down with color so we looked "legit."

We continued our sprint for another 1/2 mile or so and came upon another staff member (recklessly) driving an ATV. We told him our story again, and he had us hop in. He drove us backwards across the race course, and practically through people running until we found the group! It was pretty funny in retrospect - we arrived in style - fashionably late, on an ATV and going the wrong way on the course!
We jumped in with the group and were able to run a good portion of the race with them!

Bride Melissa - she was a moving target!

While it was a blast, and for a good cause (Melissa's running bachelorette), I can't say I would do an event like this again without reason. It was pretty pricey and a little too large for my taste (I heard almost 7000 people...might explain the traffic holdup!). However, quite a few people I know ran the event with their young kiddos or as a family, and many others trained for this as their first running event, which is pretty darn cool in my book! AND, despite the initial disappointment at the traffic, I am impressed with the way the race organizers handled it. Between the two staff members helping us get to our bride and a follow-up email to all participants apologizing for the errors and offering free entry's or race gear to anyone not satisfied, I am impressed with the professionalism of this fairly new organization. And let's not forget to mention that although this was not a local race, they did donate part of the proceeds to the YMCA of Maine.

The after picture (we obviously missed the before picture!)

Alice and I with the Bride! 

Now, switching gears to Sunday - L/A Bridge Run! One of my favorite events of the year. My goal for this race was to break 21 minutes. I ran 20:48 at the Moxie 5k in July, but have not broken 21 again since, so I was eager to see if it was just a fluke. I ran Moxie on "fresh" legs (didn't do a long run the day before) and would be running the Bridge Run on fresh legs, so I was hoping that it would be the difference between 20:xx and 21:xx. When we went out for our warmup, I realized my garmin had one bar of battery left, so I would be running most of the race naked. This ended up being a blessing in disguise. It ended up lasting me until 1.45 miles in - just long enough to keep me from going out way too fast - which I would have done without it. There were 2 girls who gunned out ahead of me after the first half mile and I would have tried to stay with them if I didn't look down as see a 6:15 pace (no worries, I caught them after the 1.5 mile hill). But not having the watch for the second half was great! I was focused on running and reeling people in/passing people instead of constantly looking at my pace.

I ended up finishing in 20:51, meeting my goal and coming in 1st in my age group, and taking home 1st in my age group for the Triple Crown Series this summer. And once again, as always, the trackies took many age group wins!

I absolutely love this race, but it always marks the official end of summer for me. Tomorrow is back to school. I also love this race because it is my PR every year (missed it this year by 3 seconds, but I'm ok with that). Here's an interesting look back...and a testament to this year's work, after an obvious 2 year plateau.

2008- 24:48
2009 - 23:15
2010 - 22:42
2011 - 22:28
2012 - 22:23
2013 - 20:51

Hard work pays off. Period.

Yay for apple pie to mula to get
new sneaks! 

Alice wins a pie for 1st in age group
for the Triple Crown 

Race Schwag from the weekend - 2 GREAT shirts, a tutu, an
apple pie, a beer mug, $50 to Lamey's and my Team
Sasseville Chiropractic headband!