Happy Mother's Day!

This morning I was woken just after midnight by one of the dogs needing out. Since it was the dog that spent yesterday puking, I dragged my sleepy self up to let them out.

Amazingly, I fell asleep again rather quickly.

At 3:30 am, same dog wanted out. Dragged sleepy self up. Let dogs out (because they won't let me let just one of them out). Went back to bed.

Couldn't sleep.

Alarm went off at 5:30. I hit snooze, thinking I *might* be able to doze a bit. No such luck.

Worse, my knees--especially my left one--were really hurting. When I don't get enough sleep, they hurt. I'm pretty sure I have some torn cartilage in both, but I've already had three knee surgeries and am not excited about adding to the count unless it becomes day-to-day intolerable and I don't think I'm at that point yet. So I took some Aleve, hoping it would be enough before the race.

I got up and cooked breakfast for the family, fed the dogs and cats, woke up my daughter and got her eating and dressed, and waited for my husband who was operating on Moroccan time. It was only when I went to go put my phone in the car I discovered that he'd texted me last night (after I went to bed) to wake him up in the morning.

Despite leaving 35 minutes later than I'd hoped, we managed to arrive in enough time to park pretty close, get to the restrooms and still have time to stand around and wait.

Had this NOT been a first-year event, I have a feeling the parking aspect would not have been so easy.

Anyway, my daughter's race started. It was a small loop around the park, followed by a bigger loop. After the first loop, she came up to me complaining she was thirsty. I pulled out her water bottle and let her drink and OFF she ran again!

Just around the corner from me, she ran right out of her shoe. I grabbed the bag of stuff I'd set down (I was still putting away the water bottle), and stood up to run and go help, but someone had already taken care of her and she took off again.

A bit later she came running around the big loop, and Baba (who'd gone off separately to get photos) was with her. I cheered her on and she finished the race by herself.

As she was handed a blue ribbon when she crossed the finish line, she proudly declared, "I WINNED, Mommy!" I gave her a big hug and kiss and agreed with her.

My race started awhile later. A 5K, this started in the park, but then wound UP into a nearby neighborhood, was mostly flat for about 1.5 miles or so, and then back down into the park.

I was still pulling off my sweatshirt when the gun went off, so I had to jog to get to the back of the pack (where I was starting), and then wait for the pack to start moving, and then move some before officially crossing the start line.

Like the 5K in my last triathlon (April 2, 2011 entry), I decided I was going to RUN the whole thing if I could. (Again, please note that by "run" you should not have a picture of someone taking lengthy strides and moving at a speed that would indicate miles being done in a single-digit minute range. No, no. Picture instead someone who is not walking, but almost might as well be.)

As I struggled through the first .75ish miles of the race (mostly uphill, part of it fairly steep), I was engaged in the following discussion in my head.

1) I should have trained more.
2) I hate this.
3) Not even sure why I'm doing this.
4) There's people walking.
5) I should walk.
6) Okay, I'll walk when I really can't run any more.
7) I hate this.
8) Way to go, positive thinker.
9) I'm insane to be thinking I could cut my run down to 10-minute miles. Hah.
10) There you go with the positive thinking again.

I did stop at the 1-mile mark, which was a water station. In my defense, it was because I wanted to consume the water instead of just wear it. I partially succeeded.

I'm not sure what point I noticed her at, but it was before the first water station: a woman wearing a purple shirt and grey pants. She was doing intervals--walk a bit, run a bit, walk, run. Since I was determined to run the whole way, I decided I wanted to try to beat her. I would just start to close the gap on her when she would start running again (and her run more closely resembled "running" than mine did). I kept plodding along, but just couldn't close the gap.

Passed mile 2 and the water station (again, stopped just enough to drink instead of wear), and then headed back downhill. I was able to pick up some speed on the downhill and was actually surprised my knees didn't kill me (especially considering my discomfort when I got up this morning).

Still couldn't catch the purple shirt woman.

As I got close to the finish line, there was a crowd of 12 or so people, cheering me on by name. I was a little confused as NONE of them looked familiar and I still couldn't see my husband. I finally realized they were cheering on someone right behind me, and hollered back, "THANKS!"

My husband released my daughter to me and she ran across the finish line, proudly declaring her signature line, "I BEAT you, Mommy!"

I was handed a pink carnation while they cut my race chip off my shoe. Then we walked around to get back to my husband and I realized I had no idea how long it had taken me. (I initially typed "how fast I'd done the race" but realized "fast" and "I" in the same sentence is not truly accurate.)

I walked back around to see the race clock and it showed 44:40. Guessing that it took me 30 seconds to a minute to get to the start line after the gun went off and a similar amount of time after finishing to check the timer, I knew that I'd taken AT LEAST 4 minutes off my last 5K.

Yes, yes, I know.

My "last" 5K (which was also my first one I'd completely run) was at the end of my last triathlon. So I'd swam 550 yards and biked 12 miles on a broken bike first. So this had BETTER be a LITTLE faster.

And yes, when your "run" pace is essentially a fast walk, it is much easier to take chunks off of your time.

Still, I was pleased, because 4 minutes is taking 1:20 off of my mile pace. Pretty good for someone who spent the whole first mile of her race complaining to herself.

I realized, as I told my husband, that the first mile to mile and a half are really hard for me and I have to FIGHT to not just quit. After that, my body seems to "give up" resisting running. As if my body says, "Well, the idiot in control apparently isn't going to stop this torture so I might as well get to it."

My husband suggested I run a mile before the race starts so that I go faster during the race.

Ha ha. Since this conversation occurred within minutes of me finishing, I was able to tell him, quite confidently, that there was NO WAY I could have gone much further and additionally, I was NOT going to sit down until we got to the car because I was quite afraid I would not be able to stand up again.

We stood around for a bit and then I decided I wanted to hunt down the woman in the purple shirt. I looked for her all over the place, and although it was a relatively small event, it was large enough I couldn't find her.

Then I spotted her pants. i walked up and asked her if by any chance she had been wearing a purple shirt during the race. When she said yes, I told her that she had totally inspired me to go faster--I saw her doing intervals and I was determined to run--but couldn't seem to get any closer. We stayed about 25-50 yards apart the whole time.

She said, "Oh my goodness, you're going to make me cry!" and gave me a huge hug. I thanked her and we left.

I didn't bother staying for awards. Probably a bad example considering when I coached gymnastics, I used to make my athletes (and, by extension, their families) stay at meets for awards ceremonies, no matter how poor the individual or team performance had been. I told them they should cheer on their competitors and show support.

In my defense, it had started to rain and my husband wanted to go home.

Okay, tangent time. Last year, Mother's Day was not a great day for me. I was sick and miserable and decided NOT to infect our good friends who had invited us over for Mother's Day lunch. So my husband and daughter went and I treasured the alone time to sleep.

when I woke up four hours later and they weren't home, I called his cell phone to see when I could expect them. No answer. While this might have worried me, he can be bad about leaving his phone in the car, so I called our friends' house number. He was still there. When I asked when he'd be back (I was feeling well enough to be up and about and wanted to spend some time with my daughter), he said they'd leave in about a half hour.

Three hours later, I called again, this time actually worried. They hadn't left yet. Two hours after THAT, they came home.

Then I was sick AND grouchy.

So far, this year was going better. I was sitting at the computer when my daughter walked up carrying a bag from a JEWELRY store.

Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I hinted a couple of weeks ago that I might like something along those lines. Perhaps the hint was in the form of a coupon. Perhaps that hint was delivered to my husband by our daughter. And perhaps she delivered it with the message, "Baba, I think we should get this for Mommy for Mother's Day," as I instructed her.

Manipulation? Me? Nah.

Okay, in my defense, the item in question was $39.99. Perhaps more than we would spend, but not outrageous by any means.

First I opened the cards. A cute one from my daughter and a very sweet one from my husband. Then I opened the little black box, which had a heart-shaped necklace in it (silver). I immediately put it on. There was also a purple sparkly heart-shaped box. My husband informed me that our daughter picked it out, but that she was actually hoping I would give it back to her. We had a good chuckle.

(She's not getting the box back.) (I know, I'm mean, but I like it and I will treasure it for years to come.)

I showered and we changed and got dressed and went to my dad's girlfriend's house for lunch, which was delicious.

We came home and my daughter and I CRASHED. I slept for nearly four hours (funny what waking up at 3:30 am after 4 hours of interrupted sleep and then running a 5K will do to you) and hopped online, hoping to find race results.

The race I did is held in 3 states. One state's results had been posted. Another state someone else found, and I couldn't find mine ANYWHERE. Finally, I dug into my race packet and pulled out the info from the timing chip, Googled it, and discovered the following:

I took 5:29 off my 5K time, finishing in 43:04. My mile pace was 13:54, which is a HUGE improvement.

Then I discovered my daughter wasn't listed in the results. I scanned and scanned...and found her in the 13 and up division.

Which is weird, because although she's 3, I entered her in the 4-year-old division. (No, this is not about being an overcompetitive Mom, although I'm sure I could be accused of that at some point. She LOVES racing and asks all the time when she can do her next one, so I entered her. And yes, for this type of thing, I totally give in.)

So I emailed and asked them to change the results (not that it makes a difference for her because she was just so pleased to get her blue ribbon that she had my husband pin it to her).

Then a late trip to the gym for a soak in the hot tub and off to bed.

This sure beat last year.