Two Left Feet

Saturday I rocked another 5K, setting a PR along the way.

However, all the serious runners in the area showed up, too, so there was no placing in my age group. In fact, I got to do some serious people-watching as many, repeat, many people passed me. (All in all, I placed 13/31 in my age group and in the top 50% overall. Pleased with that.)

First, let me describe the race: It was the 30th annual Lunar Rendezvous at the Johnson Space Center. Yeah, that's the "Houston" part of "Houston, we have a problem." It felt like running around a vacant shopping center. Lots of empty roads and empty parking lots and empty buildings. And--quite randomly--longhorn cattle (it's a project the Space Center has going on with the local school district that I have never understood).

I'm not going to tell you how "fast" I ran because, well, I'm not fast. Go check out Nap Warden if you want fast. I'm just a mom trying to delay the "skirt-swim-suit" for as long as possible.

Anyway. . .so one of my strategies during a race is to keep pace with other women who have the same shoes as I do. Logical? Probably not. But generally it works and makes some sense on some level, I suppose.

Today women with "my" running shoes included a "toe-runner" who pranced her former-drill-team-captain self past me around mile two and kept on going. Honestly, I have no idea how people can run completely on their toes. I mean, two thirds of her feet weren't even touching the ground. But, wow, did she have some killer calves!

Second up was "boat-feet": a marathon finisher (she had on the t-shirt) with her pre-teen son. They did a lot of stopping and starting as they ran and walked a lot. I lost track of them after the first mile. Not too interesting. But, wow, did my shoes make her feet look huge. Glad they don't make mine look like boats. Or do they. . ..

My favorite of the day was "two-left-feet". Actually, she had two right feet (it looked like she did, anyway). And she just stuffed her "left" right foot into a normal "left" shoe. And she was flying by me. And she was in her SIXTIES. You know, what that old lady hair that you can only get done at the beauty salon and you only wash once a week--at the salon--'cause only they can make your sixteen remaining hairs into a full head helmet of hairdo. Yeah, that was encouraging. UPDATE: After checking the race results, I discovered that this lady HAD to be in her SEVENTIES!!! (All the 60-year-olds were waaay faster than I am. Sniff. Sniff. Poor, slow old me!!)

I told you, all the serious runners were there!

Anyway, it was just the race I needed to help stay motivated and excited about running this year. Oh, and I picked a half marathon--the Surfside Beach on Valentines' Day. We've run it before and it's a great little race--and, yes, it's on the beach. Looooong time before I am actually running "the" run but I figure that's a good thing. I have a lot of little goals along the way. . .

Oh, and my PR: I took two minutes off my last "official" 5K time back in June. Yup yup! Yippee!

The best part is that Z had a blast watching all the runners and hanging around with his Daddy. He's such a cutie and clapped for everyone at the finish line!

Happy trails, y'all!