Bentonville had a Birthday Bash 5K the week of his birthday, and it seemed like the perfect race -- celebrating the one-year birthday/anniversary of Wishing Springs Trail, which is where we used to run before we moved.
Who wouldn't want a birthday cake race shirt the week of their birthday -- followed by birthday cake flavored snow cones at the finish line?
We got up painfully early for a Saturday, discussed staying in bed, whined about how we weren't prepared, almost flaked out, and then pinned on our race bibs and faced the music. At this point, I hadn't run more than 2 miles since the Bentonville Half 5K, and Trea hadn't run a step in about a month.
The race was point-to-point and started in our old stomping grounds, just a few miles from our old house. It was nice to go back to where I've spent most of my time running and where we first started.
The first mile went pretty well; we were keeping a slow, steady pace with a goal only to finish. Then the wheels fell off, just as we expected. I felt pretty good and could have probably jogged slowly the whole way, but poor Trea hadn't run in forever, was still barely awake and had forgotten to take his allergy meds in our haste to leave the house. He was miserable, so we took a few walk breaks along the way. The last mile was the worst, as with most races, but he stayed in good spirits the whole time and we finally, finally made it to the finish line. It was nowhere near our best time, but it wasn't my slowest either.
We were greeted at the finish by a snow cone truck passing out free birthday cake flavored snow cones, and I must say, I don't know why all races don't do this. After trudging along the trail with not much shade, we were so grateful for an icy treat.
It was humbling how beaten up we felt by only 3.1 miles, and I think we were the first ones on the shuttle to head back to the starting line and our car. {Thank goodness we were first. I hope they burned those seats after hauling all those sweaty runners around. GROSS.}
Afterward, we could barely move for the rest of the day and groaned with every step. We are embarrassingly out of shape but we're getting better! I've talked Trea into going to the gym with me a few times, and I'm back to running three times a week now, slowly building up my mileage.
I have another 5K on the calendar for the end of October (my first costume run!), and my only goal is to finish each race better than the last. I'm getting there.
