Mom, dad, Levi and I all ran a 5k on Thanksgiving. All 4 of us. I never imagined my whole family running a race. This was so awesome to me. I think it was last week sometime I was sitting around my parents’ house and said something to my dad about running a turkey trot if I could find one near my uncle’s house. I found one, about 10 miles away, which seemed good to me. I sent it to my dad, then my brother said, “a 5k, I can run that”. Moments later my mom decided that even with her feet problems she could run/walk a 5k. Probably 20 minutes later, thanks to a not user friendly online registration, we were all registered. Cue my excitement.
Thanksgiving morning my parents came over from the hotel to pick Levi and me up from my uncle’s house at 6:45. The race started at 8, but we didn’t know where we were going and needed to do race day packet pick-up. We woke up to cold rain. Yuck. Packet pickup was painless. I do have a mini rant though. If a race advertises women’s specific sizing they need to have it. A mens small does not fit. A mens small is not small. I was expecting a shirt that fit me. It does not. And I like the shirt. This makes me mad.
I had a few goals for the race, but didn’t know what to expect. Um, holy crowded course. And rant #2: If you run a 10 minute mile get the hell out of the 8:00 mile corral. Seriously, go back. I wish I had started up by the 6:00 minute pace group just to get past the crowds. It was terrible. Dad, Levi and I started together. In all honesty I have no idea how fast Levi runs. He is a cyclist. He could go bike 100K tomorrow and be fine. We stayed together for a bit, but then Dad and I lost Levi as we were dodging people, strollers, cones, and puddles. Dad and I stayed together. Our first mile was slow, 9:10 slow. That is not a good pace for a 5K. I wanted to run faster, but literally could not. It opened up a bit and mile 2 was 8:07 (yay!), mile 3 was 7:48 (awesome!) with a final time of 25:54. Not even close to PR, but that would have been impossible with mile 1.
Levi 24:49.91 (19/51)
Dad 25:53.26 (10/58)
Renee 25:54.41 (16/211)
Mom 32:23.02 (15/92)
Mom and Levi were first time 5k finishers. My mom hasn’t run more than 1.5 miles in years. Her feet held up and she kicked ass! Way to go mom! Everyone did great in their age groups. And everyone had fun.
I think I have even convinced my parents to run a New Year’s 5k with me!
