A weekend of Races

It feels like I had a very long weekend.... and only because both days I had to get up wayyyyy before the crack of dawn.

Do you see the beautiful moon that greeted me leaving the house?

On Saturday morning, the alarm clock went off at 4:55 am. I had committed to volunteer at a race with my best friend Beth. She is a barefoot runner, or rather a minimalist runner. She wrote a post about it here. It was very chilly but soon we got to be sweaty because we had to help set up tents and tables and put up banners. Right before the race, we were sent out into the field to direct runners into the right direction. So I got a whole lot of a workout. Once I got home, I was so wiped out that I took a three hour nap. After that, I had a pretty bad rest of the day with a humongous headache, that felt more like a migraine. So I went to bed real early....

Just to get up next morning in the dark, again, to get to my own race. It was for a good cause, so I did not mind. I had to run a 5K and Coqui got to run his very first race, a 1K. My race started at 8 am. The day before, it had been quite chilly, so I had hoped it would happen on Sunday too. But no, it was warmer to begin with, and it got hot pretty fast. So my run was not as good as I had hoped. But I did it, I made it through the finish line.... yippy. I also had to recover pretty quickly, because I still had to run a 1K with Coqui. He did awesome. He just kept running and running and running. (Secretly, I had hoped that he would start out running and soon just want to walk.... but no!) So i had to run with him. Right at the finish line, all the kids got their medal and he just beamed with pride. (And we are proud of him.)

Yes, it was a superhero race for children, so he wanted to be a knight. (Maybe because this past week, it was castle and knight week at school.)

He got to meet his (at this time) favorite superhero, SuperWhy! He was so excited.

 We also met PrincessPea but Peanut was scared out of her pants! She wouldn't even look at her. Later at home though, she kept talking about it and wanted to see pictures.

My favorite superhero was a guy dressed as a nurse. He is a real life hero, especially for someone like me - and also because tomorrow is my four-year anniversary of being cancer-free!

When we were standing at the starting line, there was a guy next to me that I had met the day before. It was an elderly man, looking more like 70 or 80, and he ran the day before at the barefoot race. And here he was again. He recognized me and wished me luck. I asked him if he races every race in town; he smiled and said 'yes'. Good for him - you know. He is probably not the fastest but he does make it through the finish line each time - that is an accomplishment.