Some other titles under consideration were "Megan's justification for three pairs of running shoes," or "How life changes when you have a child."
I ran a 5k trail race this morning, and it was a lot of fun! I wanted to run the whole thing without walking, but I took a couple minute walk break during a particularly rocky uphill section after I had tripped twice. I thought that was my feet telling me to give them a bit of a break. I finished in the third quarter of the field, and I was able to pass a bunch of people, which is always fun : ) I didn't finish ahead of the girl in front of me who was walk-running, and would inevitably start running whenever I caught up to her. Some of my favorite parts of the run were when we would hit a straight stretch and I could lengthen my stride and run a bit faster, and when we were in the woods and it felt like I was running alone. I don't run on trails by myself, because I have a horrible sense of direction in the woods, but I felt very confident with all of the race markers out there to keep me on the correct path.
When I signed up for the race, it was advertized to start at 8am. Jonathan had to work today (parents' weekend), so we had planned that he and Jon would hang out at the coffee shop near the race start, and I would just come pick up Jon (with the stroller) after the race and walk the mile or so home. Perfect. Then earlier this week, the race organizers let us know that the 10 milers would start at 8am and the 5k-ers would start at 8:20am. Since Jonathan had to be at school at 9, and I was pretty sure my time would be around 40 minutes, our original plan would not work. Thankfully, we have friends who live about half way between our apt and Jonathan's school, and they agreed to watch Jon while I ran the race. Here is where the three pairs of shoes comes in handy. I wore my trail shoes during the race, then to walk the two miles from the race course to our friends' house, I wore my old running shoes that were left at the start of the course (if they were picked up, no loss, I'd just have to wear trail shoes for 2 miles of concrete...not ideal), then I switched into my current running shoes (left with Jon and the stroller at our friends' house) to walk the 2 miles home. I essentially walked four miles and wore three pairs of shoes so that I could run three miles in the woods. Maybe a bit more complicated than it needed to be, but I'm still glad I did it.
