Fall City 10K

Our first race as a family of four was Saturday at the Fall City Half Marathon & 10K.

I've been having a lot of calf pain lately when I run so I was super nervous about how it would go. Luckily, thanks to a lot of stretching and some pre-race Ibuprofen, it was a blast. 

Before:

If the calf pain thing wasn't enough to make me nervous, the fact that we haven't done over a 3 mile run as a family because Dragon gets bored and wants out to go play made me extra nervous about how this run would go. 

One of the selling points of the race is that it is supposedly the flattest half marathon in Western Washington. When pushing a double stroller, flat is good. Hills are evil. 

Somehow Ben survived the run (while pushing the stroller) even though his training never got him running over 3.5 miles at one time. There was a pretty big hill towards the end and he thought he was done after that but he powered through and we finished! 

I ran a 1.02.24 (9.59m pace) race and Ben ran 1.02.29 (10m pace). 

I was 6th in my age group and Ben was 7th in his. (Of course that doesn't count the overall winners which were probably all from our age divisions but ... still! I took 6th!)

After:

I probably could have run a bit faster pace, looking back, but I was so nervous my calf pain would start up at any minute that I wanted to take it too slow rather than too fast.

After we crossed the finish line and rested for a few minutes I told Ben I was ready to go again! He said he could tell I wasn't pushing myself hard enough when I wouldn't quit talking towards the end of the race. Oops!

I remember training for a race once a long time ago and Ben kept talking to me and I was so exhausted and annoyed at him in that moment so I can probably imagine how he felt.

Another great thing that happened: Dragon stayed in the stroller the entire time and Colt only made happy coos every now and then despite me forgetting to feed him before we started the run. It really couldn't have gone more smoothly.

Besides the almost completely flat race course, the scenery was gorgeous. We were running on some quiet country roads near some big open fields. I  really do kind of want to go do it all again right now and enjoy the scenery more while focusing on surviving the running a little less.

It was a fun, beautiful way to spend a Saturday morning.

Another after shot, in front of the finish line:

Just before we took this picture a WORLD record was broken for fastest half marathon run by an 8 year old girl. That was definitely a fun thing to witness. It's not every day you watch world records being broken and new ones being set. She was about 10 minutes faster than the previous world record. WOW!