Saturday morning I completed another 5K.  It seems every time I run one, I recruit another friend to join me.

Brook ran her first race with me last spring, and then we suckered Melinda (the cutie with the hat)  into running this one with us.  I’m extremely proud of her.  In fact, she had a great excuse to go back on her commitment, and I wouldn’t have blamed her a bit.  But she didn’t!  She stuck it out and finished the race.

Reason No. #863 that  I love these girls–they’ll run across the finish line with me.

The clown who painted Edie’s face said she would make her look like a “butterfly princess”…I know, again with the princess thing.  But I was actually pretty impressed with the level of face painting talent that was exhibited.  These butterflies are a far cry from the crooked sunshine we used to get painted on our cheeks during the May Day celebration at school.

Edie has never had her face painted before, and therefore it was a BIG deal to her.  I took her to Wal-Mart afterwards, and as we were walking in she said, “I think everyone is going to like looking at my face.”  She was right.  She did turn a lot of heads.

She came in contact with a face painting clown while I ran a 5K race this weekend.  I was training for the 8K, but after having fever for several days before the race, I chickened out and signed up for the lesser one instead.  In all honesty, if it wasn’t for my friend, Joy, who was running with me, I probably would have slept in altogether.  I guess that’s why it is good to do these things with a partner. 

And I use the term “running with me” loosely.  It was more like blasting past me.  Of course, she has run several half-marathons and is in way better shape than I am.  Even though my mom keeps pointing out that Joy has much longer legs…yea Mom, that’s why she finished the race in 26 minutes and I followed behind six minutes later…because of her long legs.  Anyway, I did finish, and considering the month I had and how much of that time I’d spent lying in bed and wishing I was dead, I was pleased. 

Here’s another picture of the butterfly princess:

I should note that I didn’t post any race pictures this time because they came out blurry.  I like to think it’s because I was running so fast the camera couldn’t keep up.  But in all honesty, it probably has more to do with the fact that we had just bought the camera that week, and there is still a learning curve on how to operate it.  Sorry, Joy!

This Saturday was a first for me.  Something I have wanted to do for a while.  I ran my first 5K.  If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t do it in the summer because as you can imagine, it was hot.  But I knew some other people who were participating, and I just went into it knowing  I was going to sweat–ALOT.

I brought my own cheering section with me.  There was something very sweet about my little family getting up early and driving across town to come watch me run.  I don’t know why really…maybe because this was something I was doing for me, and me alone, and they supported it.  As I passed them on the corner, Ken with his camera and  Edie waving her arms, I was filled with love for them.  I am so blessed to have these precious people in my life.  So often I take them for granted because so much of my time is spent taking care of them.  Saturday served as  good reminder that they take care of me too.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the race:

So I will remember my time in case I want to run another, I finished the race in 33:23…and I only swallowed one bug.