We Did It!

Good Monday Morning! Wow, what a fantastic weekend! Last night I was exhausted. But today I have energy and my heart is so filled by the great weekend.

I will start with the race. The weather was perfect and I felt ready even though I didn't sleep much on Saturday night. Pictured above is my brother (#34), and his friend (#100) after we all crossed the finish line.

Here is where I eat a little crow. My brother was smokin'! I was proud to be running with him (if not next to him! or better yet ahead of him!). All in all, I made good time finishing the 10.3 miles in 1hour:42 minutes, but was still 5 minutes behind my brother (1:37) and 9 minutes behind his friend (1:33). I ran about a 10 minute mile, but I did it feeling really strong the whole way. I didn't have any knee or hip pain while running, which is a problem that has plagued me since my dancing years. Last night, and this morning, my knees are a bit sore but not at all as bad as I expected them to be.

There was a funny moment before the race when I picked up my racing packet...the guy giving out the bibs looked at me and said, "Number 29, this is a great number!" I told him I loved it! That it was my 35th birthday, but that my number was going to encourage me to run like a 29 year old! Later I took a Sharp-y to it!


One of the things I was really looking forward to doing in this race was running across two new bridges here in town. One of those is the Rattlesnake Bridge. I didn't get a picture of the tail but it is huge and rattles when you enter through it!




This is my brother heading toward the finish line, which is about 20 yards ahead of him! He did great. The fun part was that along the entire 10 mile route his cop friends were directing traffic and pointing out the course, so we had encouragement all along the way! Another great motivator was the two places along the route where they had professional Japanese drummers. That was really, really cool and oh so encouraging!

The Boy, The Girl, Jasmine Cat and The Mister were all standing near the finish line to give high fives and to cheer. It was great to see their smiling faces and to hear their shouts of encouragement!

The Girl and Jasmine Cat sharing a donut.

Later in the afternoon we went to see a matinee at a dinner theater here in town. It was a blast! I did find it kind of ironic to find that our table in the theater happened to be in the middle of a huge group of gray haired ladies. Apparently the southwest chapter of the D.A.R. had all met there for a social event. Just so you can picture this, the American Revolution was in the 1890's so if these were the actual daughters of men who were patriots, then well, these ladies were quite mature, if you know what I mean. I hope I am that spry 50 years from now!

After the show we went to my Mom and Dad's house where they had a Basking Robbins ice cream cake in my favorite flavors! They also made me feel better by putting a 32 on the cake and adding three candles. Somehow it worked! (You can't see them but there are actually Hershey Kisses on that cake too...do my parent's know me or what?)



So there you have it. I wish I could tell you details about Saturday too! There was shopping and new clothes and spaghetti dinner. So! Much! Fun!

But back to Sunday, there are many details and little things that meant a lot: my parents getting up super early and bringing their RV to the finish line so we could have celebratory donuts and coffee after the race. Seeing Jasmine Cat at the start of the race, her arms up in the air, cheering on her Daddy. There was also a nap in the early afternoon; pizza for dinner; teaching my kids the chicken dance (my parent gave me a card that plays the chicken dance song); and coming home to find e-mail, comments, phone messages and cards I had saved from snail mail during the week. I was really tired when we came home last night so I haven't actually opened/read the letters, cards and e-cards, emails or listened to the messages yet. I wanted to do that when my brain was fresh and when I could savor them.

From surprise birthday parties to ice cream cake, this was one birthday weekend that will be hard to beat! But, the housework put off since Thursday will now have to be dealt with!

Happy day!

La Vida Dulce!