Off to the Races

The past few months Justin and I have been trading off "running" times to make sure that we were good and trained for our upcoming races.  The first one we ran was in November at the school's Eye 5K race.  This was our pre race for our bigger race in December (the St. Jude Marathon).  I was planning on running the 5K and Justin was signed up to do the half.  I was glad the Eye 5K was a pre race because I did not perform up to par.  Plus it was raining the whole race, so you can't tell in the picture but we were soaked.

The weekend of the official race came and Justin convinced nearly his whole family to come down and partake in the maddness with us.  Morgan (sis in law), Bill, and I did the 5k.  (Jeff had to opt out because of a back injury), and Justin and his brother Jeremy ran the half.  Here we are at 5 AM getting ready to head downtown.

The 5kers started before the half marathoners so Justin and Jer came to the starting line to see us off.

Everyone did really well.  I was happy I did better than I did in the Eye 5k, but still missed my goal by 6 seconds! (But I blame it on the fact that mother nature wasn't too friendly and sent me my period the morning of the race.  Sorry if that is tmi, but its true.  It wasn't helpful cause I was on pace to beat my goal by a minute, until the 3rd and the unpleasant side effects kicked in).  Bill beat his goal by 2 minutes and Morgan came in 10th out of 240 in her age/sex group!  AMAZING!

After the race I ran into some of my friends that I got to cheer on as they ran the half.  They were sweet and let me jump in a picture with them, but they are the real runners, and I'm kinda the fake one in the middle! :)

Justin and Jeremy also did great.  Justin didn't beat his PR, but he still did great.  Here he is at the 13th mile.  This was Jeremy's first race ever and during his training he was having major knee issues.  The most he ran during training was 8 miles.  He (along with the rest of us I think) was pretty nervous about it.  He did amazing!!  He finished in 2hrs11mins, and he felt great at the end!

Justin's mother may have had the hardest race of all-- watching the 5 grandkids all by herself!  She said her only payment would to get a cool t-shirt like the rest of us.  So we surprised her at the end of the day with this Tshirt we found and had embroidered.  We thought the back was clever "working toward 26.2 Grandkids" :) The front said "Grandma-K"

The race was great, but we also had a great time with the family visiting.  We took them to Rendezvous for some famous BBQ.

Jackson and Sadie being cute.  Jackson LOVE his cousin Sadie.

Jonah is our southern boy at heart and loved the BBQ :)

We also took them to the Peabody to see the ducks march on the red carpet.  I love the Peabody at Christmas.