First 5k

It's always been on my mind that I wanted to do a 5k someday.  Earlier this year, I became aware of the FitOne Boise race and found out that on a certain day they were having insanely-cheap registration.  So for $30, I signed up all 5 of us to race.  The day was far away in September and I figured we'd be up to it by then.

Toward the end of August I realized that the far-off day was quickly approaching, so we started taking the kids on walks in the evenings.  We began with a walk around the neighborhood, then a mile, then two miles.  The week of the race we walked over 3 miles (round trip) to our local Walmart.  It was a crazy-long walk and we got back after dark.  The kids whined a bunch, but they also had fun.  I told them that our race would be a little shorter than that walk, so they knew they could do it.

The day of the race we had to get up before 7:00 to get to the Boise Mall and catch a bus to Downtown before 9:00.  Dontcha love the pictures strangers take?  Why do I grimace so much in pictures?  Do I do this a lot in real life?  What in the heck is my face doing when I'm not watching?

We all had matching shirts that we got for free with our registration.  Pretty good for $30!

 

 Once we got downtown we had to wait for the race to start.  (And even after the race began, we had to wait for our "wave", the Orange Stroller Non-competitive Wave.)  They played music to keep everyone entertained.  I made sure to dance really crazy in front of people I didn't know.  (Embarrassing my children: just another service I offer.) Volunteers were handing out balloons to the kids.  Unfortunately, Vander clotheslined on Annalee's balloon string and had an awful red mark on his neck for days.  But still, we had a lot of energy and were excited to start!

It was long, but it was doable.  About halfway through they had people handing out cups of water.  At different intervals along the course there were volunteers cheering people on with signs or music, even a hot air balloon when we were halfway up the big hill.  A little ways from the finish line we got high fives from St. Luke's nurses.  (St. Luke's Hospital sponsored the race.)

We almost lost Bellana's shoe at one point but luckily we noticed it was gone before we'd gone too far and someone who'd picked it up noticed us walking the wrong direction and returned it.  I was able to pay it forward an hour later when I found a pair of leg warmers at the top of the last hill.  I kept my eyes out for people walking back up the hill and soon found the owner.

The kids did great. By the end of the race, though, they were done.  The last part of the race had us going down a divided street and then doubling back on the other side to the finish line.  So we could see the finish line for a long time as we walked past it and turned around and came back.  Annalee had held up pretty well until then.  That's when she started crying that she was too tired and wanted to be carried.  (I suspected that she was not actually that tired and instead, was merely jealous of Bellana in the stroller and Vander, who was carried off and on for half of the race.  My suspicions were proven correct when we finished the race and the kids started begging to go play on the toys at the park, which they did with great energy.)  As we crossed the finish line, the RFID tags in our race numbers displayed our names to the emcees, so they read our names aloud and then made a silly joke about our last name--one that we've heard a zillion times.  But Annalee hadn't been teased about her name before and it really upset her.  We tried to explain that it was just a joke, not meant to be hurtful, but she wouldn't let it go.  She wanted to change her name to something that you couldn't make fun of.  Oh, Daddy and I got a laugh out of that!  We explained how EVERY name can be made fun of, and told her the dumb things people had said about our names over the years.  That only made her more upset.  It went on for several days, and the thing that finally got her out of it was when I told her that we used to tease Uncle Steven by calling him Stevaunavitch, Stephanroake, and Stephanie.  She burst out laughing about Stephanie.  (Sorry, Steve!)

When we got home I realized I had no clue what our race time was, lol!  I think three hours?  We had to stop halfway through the race so I could nurse Bellana when her missed naptime caused a meltdown.  (I'm glad I found a nice spot off the course.)  Things were a little crazy.  But I'm glad we did the race.  It taught us that we can.  Annalee wore her race shirt to school the next Monday because she was so proud of herself.