Mother's Day Fun

We started Mothers day bright and early. The rain had cleared thankfully and we were ready to race. We headed out to Reston and after parking and walking quite a distance arrived just in time to slip into the Mothers Run This Town picture.

She doesn't look too sure here, but raced like a champ!

Courtesy of Suzanna O'shea

I then headed off to the bathrooms and got in place to race about 3 minutes before the start. Talk about perfect timing! I gave my husband and daughter a quick race and we were off. I don't typically spend too much time looking at race routes ahead of time. It doesn't seem to help me to know what is coming ahead, I just try to take the course as it unrolls ahead of me. I knew we were in for some hills, but hoped that for every uphill we would get a downhill. 

We hit hill number 1 right out of the gate. I felt like I was running really slowly, but talked myself into early racing stiffness and knew it would work itself out. 

Meanwhile the super cute racers were lining up. 

I was feeling good as we made our way around the loop that formed the course. I was keeping a pretty steady pace and was loving having so much room to run. The race had spaced us out nicely and I had fallen in with a few parent/child pairs and some other running. They didn't mark the mileage until Mile 2, which was ok with me. I knew were were past a mile and was feeling looser. Not fast, but I felt like I was keeping a nice easy pace. There was a water stop just past mile 2 and I decided to run through it. I started to think I had a chance to run the whole race. 

Meanwhile.....more cuteness. 

She decided to wear a tutu, because she like it when runners wear them. The 1 mile race wasn't timed, but my husband thinks she ran it in about 10 minutes. Way faster then Mom!

We were still doing some nice steady up and down hills. They were rolling hills. (haha) I just kept going, Slowing down when I needed to, but not stopping to a walk. We came over the last hill and I could see the turn back into the park. Yea! I was going to do it. 

I thought I might have PR'd, but the fact is I run slower then I walk. *sigh* 4 miles in 49:33. Not too shabby.  

In line for balloon animals with our support team

Happy Runners

All in all, it was a great local race. Potomac River Running does a nice race and the shirts were super cute. I was so happy to have my daughter out there running and experiencing a little bit of what mommy does. She isn't too sure about doing it again, but I will keep working on her. I know my son loves to run with me and he is a great coach. Maybe he can get me to run faster!