I ran; I nearly stumbled

I ran the Runner Stumbles 5K yesterday with my nephew. My cousin and her son joined us, too, which was a fun little treat. I have to say, I thought that my third race without Paul would have been easier, but for some reason, I found it emotionally difficult to run this race without him. Maybe because it was my hometown race. Maybe because I was running the shorter course while Paul and I always ran the longer 10K course. Maybe because some days are harder than others without any reason. But I managed to make it.

Just as I thought I was going to start crying because I couldn’t stop thinking about Paul, Dignity by Deacon Blue* came on the iPod. I know that I’m the one who set the playlist, so I shouldn’t be surprised it was there, but the gadget was playing all of the songs randomly so I didn’t know when (or if) that song would play. That song gave me the kick I needed though which made a difference to the entire race for me.

My time was slower than I really wanted – but faster than the time my doctor wanted to me run it in. But (shhh…) we won’t tell her.

In addition to the fun of running with the family, the enjoyable part of the race was that I passed two women who were on the high school cross country team with me (they finished about five minutes behind me) and one gal who is in high school now who informed me that she’d be beating me. Yeah, in the end, she was about three minutes behind me. So there, you little brat.

This race really did kick my butt. I need to get in gear though because my nephew and I have a 10K race coming up and I can’t let him down!

Check out more of my race photos here!

* Dignity was Paul’s “victory song“ when he ran for student office at Edinburgh University.

Photo credit to my daddy, Roy Cook