Freedom 5K Recap

Our before the race photo

I'm so excited to tell you about our first race as a family! The Freedom 5K is part of our marathon training with our running group. The kids had been excited about having the t-shirt they got during our group's kick-off party. They told me as they held their t-shirts "now our whole family can run." We woke up early, put on our Fort Bend Fit shirts and off we went. If you follow me on Periscope you can saw our running group pre-race ritual, which is a prayer, our "hooyah," then we walk to the start line. I decided to hang in the back because I was going to be pushing a stroller. After we ran half a mile my husband asked me if I wanted to give him the stroller and run with my son. I said yes. My son runs very well. He asked to walk a bit and was excited about reaching the water stop till we saw this:

guess who? my beautiful people!

My husband Zeke told me that our middle daughter was tired and had enough of the race. As a runner I was thinking: "are you serious?!?" but as a mother, I told him to go ahead with our son and I'd hang back with the girls. After a quick assessment I agreed that the girl was done. Much like my own personality, she went into her bad mood. Thank God one of our sweet running club buddies hung with us and sweetly talked to my daughter for close to a mile. I thanked her for her help and told her she could go on and finish. I proceeded to walk back to our car and get the double stroller out of it. When I reached the start line (again) the Family 1.5 Walk/Run was starting. To make matters more interesting, the girls kept asking me to run faster. Mind you: I was pushing a good 70 lbs of beauty on a double stroller!!! I think that my confession for this race was "we finish what we start." I kept saying that to myself because I also got some "I want to go home" from my youngest. I thought that it was important to physically teach my kids that no matter how difficult, we finish what we start. When we passed the second water stop they were out of water but they did have ice and super mom here had enough water in the stroller to hydrate half dozen runners. Ha! By the time i saw that we were on mile 2, I thought the last mile was going to be my longest one yet.

By this time I was thinking: forget my time!

This 5k started and ended at a local park so as soon as I re-entered the park I saw my friend Mary Bell running. I haven't seen her in a while so I started asking about her training. This friend of mine is a Boston runner and she's training for Chicago so she was asking all kinds of questions about my experience last year. Talking to her made that last bit of the race seem quicker. When I was really close to the finish line, my husband and some came back to meet us. My son had a bunch of goodies in hand and he screamed "Dada and I won the race!" That was the sweetest thing ever to hear. My husband took on the stroller duty and I ran solo to the finish line. Our head coach was there cheering me on. I finished in 48:07.6, which I believe it's my slowest time ever. I've ran a 5K when I was 10 weeks pregnant and I've finished faster than that. All things considered, I reached my goal: I finished what I started. My husband made sure we got this photo for our records.

We did it Listenbees!

No matter how long it took and how difficult it was, everyone had a great time. I felt that this race taught me what Luke 22:27 really means. Jesus was explaining that He came not to be served but to serve. I will forever remember this race as my "serving" race. I got to do whatever it took to be sure that my family had a great time and finished the race well. It is more blessed to give than to receive. I have ran many races by myself but I am overjoyed to  have experienced this incredible race with my entire family.