On friday night I drove home to Houston after a long hard day of subbing for speech at Mike Moses Middle School (we watched movies all day woo! Thats the best day when it comes to subbing) to get ready for our 5k on Sunday.
SATURDAY: A&M INDOOR MEET
Saturday after a morning shake out run (of 5 miles) the rest of the family loaded up in the mini-van and headed to college station for the Team Ten A&M Indoor Meet. Amanda was running the 3K, and it was her first race back in over a year! (Shes been injured since the end of 2010 cross)
Amanda at the beginning of the race
Amanda ran a 10:23! (She wasnt happy with it but I thought it was awesome for her first 3k ever!)
Here is a picture of Randi (ex-roomie) and Lauren (Roomie) about to run the mile. Lauren broke the school record, and Randi ran a PR!!!
Side Note #1: (Please excuse my temper tantrum rant for a moment, I will have two throughout the remainder of this blog)
This was my first experience at the A&M Indoor facility, and may I just say that the system that is in place here is quite awful! It is not spectator friendly AT ALL! The people who run the show have the building on lock down and it is also very expensive for an indoor track meet!
- Our saved ticket names were messed up and we obviously were down for two, but both names were on the same line so we had to buy an extra ticket.
- You cannot leave your seat to go to the bathroom unless you have your ticket with you or you cannot return to your seat.
- you cannot cheer at the railings, because you will be blocking the spectators (even though there was absolutely NO one behind us) and they will come immediately and remove you
- Your staduim seats must be a certain size, yes they will take out their rulers and measure for you
- Athletes are NOT allowed in the spectator section, they will remove you immediately
- The track is unusually far away from the stands making it very difficult for cheering to be effective.
Bottome line A&M Indoor Facility, you suck.
SUNDAY: 5K RACE IN HOUSTON
Today began bright and early at...4:00 A.M.! I woke up to eat my pre-race (which was a chocolate Power Bar, I will NOT be following this routine again 3.5 hrs before my race. The results were not good: enough said) and began getting ready to head downtown.
We met at the Hilton Hotel and began our warm-up from there. It was dark outside and a bit chilly but all of the blocks around the George R. Brown convention center were packed with people! It was so fun to see everyone ready and wanting to run!
Check out those bright pink shoes!
Robbie (my brother) ran in the 5K too! We ran together for the 2nd half of the race, and my favorite part of the race was at the end he told me "Its time to go!"
After the race
Team Green Girls!
Robbie, Amanda and I walking around afterwards
I was blessed enough to end up winning first overall woman! So afterward they whisked me off (very quickly) to the press room of the convention center where I was interviewed by a Houston Chronicle guy, a teammate on the guys side (Ryan) won overall so he was getting interviewed as well!
RACE SUMMARY: I ended up winning overall, which was exciting, but I honestly wasnt very happy with my race. I felt that I had a fast start, and then towards the end I had side stitches which slowed me down considerably. My time was a 17:18, which is a second slower than my 5k track PR! This makes me excited about the posibilites of where I can get to in track season!
Side Note #2: (Please excuse this second rant, it will be my last of the blog...promise!)
Today I realized that people do not understand the etiquette of where to stand on the starting line for races, so I feel it my duty for the good of everyone to clear this mis understanding up.....
First- KNOW YOUR PLACE! You know who you are, self awareness of your ability is the key!!! But if you are not the best at this concept allow me to assist you.
You should not be near the front if:
- You have a water bottle back-pack
- You say the words "I'm going to try and run this 5k in 45 minutes
- You have headphones in your ears (many people may disagree with me on this one, but I stand firm on it!)
- You are wearing pants when it is in the 60's
- You say the words "I havent trained for this, but im doing it for you!"
- You are an elementary aged child (really parents don't let your child be "that kid")
- You and your wife are both aged and plan to run together
- When the gun goes off you go out at a 12 min mile pace
I was about 4 rows removed from the starting line and these were all people who were beside or in front of me! And then I had to do sooo much extra work to get around them at the start when they began their "jog" after the gun went off. Just go ahead and move further to the back, it really would be better for everyone!
Overall we had a wonderful weekend full of running and fun! Happy day of no work tomorrow!
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