Happy Birthday to Me

My husband and I had agreed that the title of this blog post would be "Suck it 35", but as I get more readers who know me in my professional life, I'm just putting it out there that I KNOW that isn't a very ladylike title. So I changed it. But there is an edge of compromise in telling you, and many of you know how I feel about this birthday in particular.

My birthday celebration of choice this year was to sign up for the Veteran's Day 10K. I registered a couple of months ago and managed to get my friend and my sister (who is by the way a very, very good friend of mine thankfully) to register as well. I've been excited about setting new goals for myself, and for a long time the event was a single line on an otherwise empty weekend on the calendar.

And then Phil asked if I wanted to go rowing again that same day but later in the afternoon. My thoughts were that #1 - heck yeah, I absolutely wanted to go rowing again, and #2 - it would be no problem because there were hours between the run and the row, and the row was going to be a "leisurely row" that culminated in a family picnic for rowers from his boat club. So my calendar had two events.

Last Tuesday my husband came home from work and told me that we'd been invited to the Cystic Fibrosis Gala, which just happened to be the night before my race. Thoughts about that were #1 - it would be fun to go out for a nice evening with my husband and #2 - we would just come home at a reasonable hour and both keep in mind that I had a race in the morning. So I desperately called babysitters (*Thank you Kaitlin!*), and we added that event as well.

Here is a photo of us as we were getting a loving send off and responsibly leaving the house at 6pm:

And here's a photo of us well past midnight after I convinced myself that the race was only a portion of my birthday celebration, that an evening of dressing up and dancing was too good to pass up by being overly responsible:

And then came Sunday morning...

I've been nervous about the race for a while now, but it really wasn't too bad. Some great advice from my friend Josh helped get me through the self-talk challenge, and I was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other until we finally crossed the finish line. Josh suggested that I purposely take it slowly in the beginning and after finishing the first 5K to try and mentally set it aside as though it hadn't happened, so that I could run the second with a clearer mind and attitude. It worked well - my second 5K was a few minutes faster than the first, and overall I finished with a time of 65:28 (10:33/mi). Could I have been faster if I hadn't gone out Saturday night? Possibly. Might I not have wanted to curl up on the side of the road for a nap between miles 4-6? Probably. Would I do it again the same way? Absolutely.

Here's a post-race shot of the three of us:

I had just enough time at home to get cleaned up and bake cornbread for the picnic. Coincidentally, our row was also a 10K distance and was a lot of fun. As we set out, Phil asked if I wanted to take it easy for the first half and then try and row for a time on the way back. It was impossible not to think of Josh's advice and smile. Sure thing. Who wants leisurely on a weekend like this?!

Suck it 35! Happy Birthday to ME!