Saturday morning was the Building Strength 5K benefiting South Metro Human Services. It’s a smaller 5K, but it’s close to my heart because it was the first 5K I ever ran 3 years ago. It’s sort of like an anniversary each year that I do this race.
It was a gorgeous morning — actually warmer than it has been the last couple years. I met up with Hyedi and other friends before the race. Several of us lined up to run together and were aiming for a sub 30 time. At 9 a.m., we were off. The route is two laps around a park. It’s a nice route with a good mix of sun and shade and just a few small hills. We kept a good pace throughout and I felt pretty good. My unofficial time was 29:27. EDIT: My official time was 29:26. It was a lot of fun running, hanging out with friends, and supporting a good cause!
Later that day, my parents were in town. We went for a leisurely walk by the river. With temps in the 80’s in September, we needed to soak up as much sun as possible.
Then we headed to the Gopher volleyball game. We ended up playing musical chairs with our seats. When we reached our assigned seats we found scaffolding was set up over them (they were in the last row of the lower level). My sister went to the ticket window to let them know and they assigned us new seats that were in the second to last row of the upper level – a much worse location. We sat there for the first two games of the match, but then decided to talk to the ticket office again because it didn’t seem right to be given worse seats for something that wasn’t our fault. The office did the right thing and gave us new seats on the floor to watch the rest of the game. The Gophers lost to Penn State, but it was still fun to see a game!
On Sunday morning, I got up and headed out for a run. I wanted to get in one more long run before next weekend’s TC Looney Challenge (3 races in 2 days). Doing the run the day after the 5K was also a good test of running on tired legs. I set out with a goal of running somewhere between 1 hour and 30 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes. My legs were tired and heavy at the beginning, but after a couple miles they started to warm up and I was keeping a pace around 10:35/mile. My route ended up having a couple of hills on it, which I actually handled without any trouble.
I made it to 1 hour and 30 minutes and still felt good, so I decided to try for the last 15 minutes. When RunKeeper chimed in that I had reached that time, I saw that my distance was just short of 10 miles, so I decided to run for one more minute in order to hit 10. Overall, it was a good run. Really the best part about it was the mental boost it gave me for next weekend. I was feeling a bit nervous about running 3 races in 2 days. It’s still going to be hard, but I feel more confident that my body will get me through it.
In the afternoon, I met up with a few coworkers and their families to celebrate one of the last hot days before winter hits by sitting outside in a park and relaxing. A lovely way to wrap up a busy weekend!
How was your weekend?
On A Fun Run 
Sounds like you ended up with some great seats — nice!
I’m glad your weekend long run went so well. Thanks for coming out to the 5k, it was a lot of fun running with you!
Yea, ended up with great seats! It was fun running with you too!