Memorial Day Flag Relay

Memorial Day. A day to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. The military. It's a part of my life. It's been a part of my life for over a decade. I'm proud to have served. I'm proud to continue to do what I can to honor those who still serve, those who did serve, and those who paid the highest price. I run. It's what I like to do. I heard about this relay that was happening on Memorial day. It was going from Foley, AL and it was running right past my house to the Naval base. I HAD to be a part of this, so I contacted the organizer and volunteered my team, Team RWB Pensacola, to run 10 miles.
I wasn't sure I would get enough interest from the team, but I figured I'd run all 10 and if I could I'd find people to join me for portions of the run. Turns out others also wanted to run the entire 10! I got an amazing response from my team! I was so proud and excited.
It was a great relay. Chris and Alex from Team RWB Mobile passed the flags off to Jeff, Michael and I. It was an awesome feeling watching them carry the flags over the bridge.

It was 1pm and it was hot. The excitement over the whole thing carried me about 2 miles, then the heat started to take it's toll. Thankfully my husband and the kids and Michael's wife were following us and providing support. I had my camelbak filled with water, but it wasn't until I got cold gatorade from a cooler that I really started to feel good.

 

 

 

 

 

My husband wanted to run some miles, so once we got on base we switched and he got to run the 3 miles to the exchange point.

 My kids loved waving the flags out the window and stopping to get out and cheer on everyone.

 

 

I love this photo because they look like they are melting. It was seriously hot out there! Fred also joined us on base for the last few miles.

 

At the firestation we passed the flags to the organizer (Aimee) and her daughter. We ran the last 2 miles with them to finish out the relay. We had a little reminder of why we were doing this run along the way...

 

 All done!

 

It was a great run! We will be doing this relay again next year; it was a great way to pay our respects.

St John's Sunset Run

I signed up to run the St John's Sunset 5k run and Katelynn was going to do the 1 mile kids run. I don't remember why now, but I didn't run the 5k. I ended up just running the 1 mile fun run with Katelynn. While the 5k event was going on the kids played at the playground.

It was an evening run, but it was still hot. Katelynn was so excited! She loves running. Chris got some good photos of us. Maybe not this first one...

But here we are heading off and crossing the bridge. Katelynn did very well on the run. She got a little tired and kept wanting to stop for walk breaks. At the turn around point they had a bunch of Marines cheering on everyone. They gave Katelynn a bunch of high 5's - she yelled that she was ready now because she had high 5 energy! She ran the entire way to the finish.

 Chris got some good shots of us heading into the finish...

 She's still smiling!

 Almost done!!

Every time I do a run Katelynn asks if she can do the kid run. I've discovered that most of the runs in this area do not have kid fun runs. It's sad because she really enjoys them. I sign her up for one every time I find one. Even Denver has started saying he wants to run with Mommy. At the young age of 3, he usually only lasts about 1/4 of a mile, but lately he's been running 2 even 3 laps around the track with me...normally barefoot. I love that my kids love running! I hope when they get bigger that they'll still want to run and that I'm still able to run. I love my little family!!!

Fiesta 10k

I have no pictures from the Fiesta 10k. It, in my opinion, was my worst race. Ever. My time actually was not that bad - 1:03. That's a minute slower then my PR at the Turkey Trot 10k in MD which considering that I walked a good bit of it, is not so bad. Lots of people rave about this run; I personally was not impressed. There are so many beautiful places to run in Pensacola, there was nothing scenic or charming about this run except for maybe the last mile that was through downtown. It started up by the airport and had a decent hill or two at the start. I didn't have any problems until around mile 2.5-3. I had been sick a lot lately with allergies and I just felt awful. I couldn't breath. I would walk a little bit, then I would run, then I couldn't breath, so I would walk some more. There was a lot of people along the course cheering the runners on. Every time people would cheer I'd force myself to run. It was just awful. At one point we ran along heavy traffic and the fumes just made my stomach queasy. I had never been so happy to see a finish line in my life.
Chris and the kids had come to the race but they weren't any where along the course or at the finish. I just felt completely alone and deflated. I don't normally run by myself, and I've only ever ran one or two races without a friend. It's hard to explain. I was so happy to have finished and not given up, but yet I felt horrible. My head hurt. My lungs hurt. My pride hurt. I found that on runs when I'm just not feeling good that I'm my own worst enemy. I kept telling myself how bad I was, why do I bother running, I'm not any good at it, I'm a failure, etc, etc, etc.

One thing I decided after the run was no more races for awhile. I want to enjoy the experience especially when I'm paying for it, and this just wasn't fun. The next thing was to start running by myself a few times a week. I needed to spend some time with just myself and the pavement. Time alone to work on positive thoughts and not negative thoughts. I don't ever want to be in another race where I spend the time telling myself how horrible of a runner I am. That's not why I run. It was a hard lesson.