Get Busy Livin 5k

This year was the 6th annual Get Busy Livin' 5k in my hometown. The 5k supports the Get Busy Livin' Foundation which honors Dylan Meier, a classmate of Jeremy's who died in a hiking accident. Jeremy grew up with Dylan and then graduated high school with him. Being at the race to support the Meier family and to honor Dylan is very important to us. This was the 6th year we ran the race and we hope to be able to make every race in the future as well. We were pleased that Jeremy was not only able to make it for the race festivities, but he was also able to walk the Friendship Mile that is part of the event. Everyone was so excited to see Jeremy and so many of his classmates and friends who have supported him through his Go Fund Me campaign were able to see in person the amazing gains he has made. The overall winner of the 5k went over to Jeremy after he finished and thanked him for not running so he was able to win this year. He hadn't heard about Jeremy's accident and Jeremy was walking so well he had no idea Jeremy actually was not able to run. I was impressed he is walking well enough that his injuries were not obvious to others who don't see him frequently. I can tell he walks differently, but he's walking well enough others don't notice. Dad walked the mile with him along with Carter and Elise. Carter walked the first two laps and then rode on his Opa's shoulders for the last two laps. I was glad to see he was staying with them. He was so excited about the event that he ran all the way from the car to the football field and I was worried he would want to run the mile and would make things difficult for dad. I think it helped that everyone else was walking so he just went with the flow.

All of us in our race shirts after the race.

Jeremy, dad, and the kids walking the mile.

Perfect sign for Jeremy!

Going into the race I had put a lot of pressure on myself to make this race my best of the season. The event means so much to me and I always want to give it my all each year. The problem was that I had been training hard for a long time and I was getting burned out. I ran a 20:29 at the New Year's Eve race and just kept trucking along with speed work in preparation for this late April race, thinking if I kept doing speedwork I could definitely improve my postpartum PR. It was definitely high time for a rest period and I probably would have stopped running speedwork weeks beforehand had this race not been my big goal race. Once we arrived at the race I took off for a mile warm up and was feeling pretty good. I noticed the wind was pretty darn intense and knew running under 20:29 was most likely not a realistic goal. I would need pretty much ideal conditions to improve that time. After my cool down I switched my Garmin over to see what time it was and when I flipped it back over to running mode, it wouldn't pick up satellites. I've never had that happen before. Typically if it picks up satellites, I can switch it back and forth with no problem and it will pick up satellites really quickly when I switch it back to running mode. It made me pretty anxious because they changed the course for this year so without my Garmin I wouldn't know the mile splits or when I was about a half-mile from the finish. At that point I decided to throw out the idea of running a PR and just go for place. My goal was to finish first overall female and I knew if I was under 21 minutes that shouldn't be a problem.

When Thomas came up from getting dressed we realized we were dressed in matching outfits!

We took off and I was still holding onto hope that my Garmin would pick up satellites so I left it on, but when it switched over to power save during the first half-mile or so, I let it turn itself off. The race went out onto a paved running path with poles in the middle where it crossed streets so cars couldn't get on the path. The only trouble I had there was trying to pass someone as we came up to the pole. The race thinned out pretty quickly. I felt like I started out slower than usual, but I have no idea what pace I was running at the start. Thomas was ahead of me and I passed him, I'd guess within the first half-mile. It was funny because when Thomas came upstairs dressed for the race, we realized we had dressed in not just the same shirt but in matching shorts. It was pretty funny! I was passing people for a large portion of the race and then things thinned out. I knew the race started after the original 9:30 start time but I hadn't paid attention to exactly when it started. All I could see on my Garmin was what time it was so I was figuring out how far into the race I might be assuming we started at 9:40. As I passed one guy his Garmin beeped so I asked him if it was the 2 mile mark and he said no, it was his pace indicator but he thought we were close to the 2 mile mark. I started trying to pick it up a bit but wasn't sure how much to pick it up since I wasn't sure how much we had left.

Taking off at the race start.

Mom starting off walking with Erin and her mom.

I had picked out a guy in front of me and told myself he was running sub-21 minutes so I needed to catch up to him if I wanted to run under 21. When I passed him I asked him if we had hit the 2 mile mark yet and he said, "Oh yeah, we have about a click left." I assumed that meant a kilometer (I'm not up with abbreviations) so I figured that would be a little over half a mile so I took off. It wasn't long until I could see the stadium come into view and I knew once I headed in, it was just across the football field to the finish. As I hit the football field I was really kicking it in and was shocked to see the finishing clock was barely over 20 minutes. I heard dad, Jeremy, and Carter cheering for me as I crossed the finish line in 20:19 and was a bit in disbelief I had run a PR. The race sure didn't feel like a PR, like I was rocking out and kicking butt. I headed over to walk with Jeremy, dad, and the kids and dad told me he was pretty sure the course was short. I asked a few people I knew who had run with their Garmins on and they all said it was a bit short at 3.03 miles or so. I was a bit bummed the course was short and that my Garmin hadn't picked up satellites. I felt like I could've run a lot better had I known my mile splits and had an idea of how far I had left to go. But I also think it was good for me to run without it. It allowed me to run the race off of feel, to go for place rather than time, and to not fret about my miles being slower than what I wanted. Figuring I ran 20:19 for 3-3.03 miles, that would still put me finishing somewhere in the 20:45-20:59 range which I'm fine with. Running under 21 minutes was my goal.

Finishing the race.

Top 3 female finishers, we ended up lined up right to left so the picture shows 3rd, 2nd, 1st.

Elise with Oma and Addison with her grandma.

A picture Erin took of me with my award.

I was the first female finisher and 17th out of 262 total finishers. I enjoyed watching Thomas unleash a crazy kick to finish in 21:16 which put him 21st overall and 7th out of 25 in his age group. After Thomas finished I ran out to run/walk back with mom. She did really well and finished in 44:12, putting her 230th overall and 11th out of 21 in her age group. We stayed around for awards and then hung out, letting Carter and Elise play with the other kids on the football field. It was such a fun event, as it is every year. Afterward we headed to McDonald's for breakfast and it was awesome to see Jeremy still walking really well even after the mile walk!

Thomas finishing strong.

Mom finishing.

Elise playing with my friend's son.