A 10k Race and A New Nephew

The past week has had its ups and downs. Mostly they have been ups, but there have been a few moments of downs. Most of these were when I thought about the Polar Dash 10k which was this past Saturday. The past two weeks we have had massive amounts of snow, then negative forty degree windchills which highs in the negative twenties then rain and forty degree weather. This drastic weather change caused massive sinus issues for me. I was functioning but not at the normal 100% that I had been before the holidays. On Thursday of last week, my parents and my brother in law were would of town. Parents on a fun hunting trip and brother in law on a work trip. The fear for the weekend with them out of town was that my sister would go into labor. Luckily this did not happen. Her baby was just not ready to come out into the big, scary world just yet.

This past Saturday was the Polar Dash which is sponsored by Team Ortho. This is the first of four races that Team Ortho sponsors in Chicago. I thought when I signed up for this race, I would be ready to run and I would be in full training mode, which would make a 10k easy no matter what the conditions were on race day. Well, race day came after forty degree weather and melting snow and ice. I signed up for the Polar Dash after a friend convinced me to about two months ago. At the time, it sounded like a great idea. The path was icy in spots, wet most of the place and kinda slippery. I was more successful than I thought I would be. I did not have any true expectations for this race knowing that I had not run since Thanksgiving. Sure, I had a three mile run here or there, but it was nothing serious or consistent. The advantage I feel I had was from having the training schedule of three times a week lifting with a trainer. I attribute the amount of time I actually ran to being consistent with my lifting. Hey, its better than nothing. About mile 4, after the turn around and on the way back to the finish my ankle started to flare. I was currently at about a 12:30 min mile pace, which I was happy with. I had some faster miles and some slower miles, mostly because of the ice and puddles. After my ankle started to flare up, I saw the lady I signed up with. I decided that I would run/walk with her to kinda give my ankle a rest and to keep myself from pushing too hard and side lining myself. Well, for as tough as my run was, the lady I ran with set a PR for a 10k race. I am so proud of her because it was a goal for her to break a 15 min mile and she killed it. You can see in the below picture from after the race that she is beaming from crushing her goal.

As we pull into the garage to park before the race I get a call from my little brother telling me that my sister in law's water broke and they were at the hospital waiting to go to labor and delivery. At about 10:45 as we are about a mile from the finish, I get a text from my brother that my sister in law was expected to have the baby about 1:00pm that day. We got changed after the race, dropped my brother's car off at his office and back to the hospital about 45 minutes before my nephew was born. Thankfully, the lady I was with for the race didnt mind sitting in a waiting room till the baby was born. My nephew was born at 12:21 on Saturday afternoon. After meeting Clark Roscoe, we headed out of the city. I got to spend some time with my brother and sister in law on Sunday before the rest of my family came into the city. It was really awesome to have a few hours to just hold my nephew and catch up with my little brother.

Meet Clark Roscoe born on Saturday, January 11th at 12:21 pm. I am so excited to spoil this little guy as much as possible. Having met Clark, I cannot wait to meet my sister's soon to be born son as well. Two new nephews in a very short time span. . . What more could I ask for?

Today I decided to figure out how many and which races I have signed up for. It ends up that I have run one 10k already and am signed up for 6 more races with the possibility of three more. Currently I am signed up for:

Polar Dash 10k - Jan 11th 
Get Lucky 7K - March 19th (4.34 miles) 
Shamrock Shuffle 8k - March 30th (4.96 miles) 
Soldier Field 10 Miler - May 24th 
 Rock n Roll Half - July 20th
 Fort 2 Base 5k- August 24th 
Women's Rock 10K - September 20th
Monster Dash Half - October 19th
Hot Chocolate 15k - November 2nd

With these three that I am most likely going to register for just havent yet:

Illinois Marathon 10k - April 26th
Fort 2 Base 5k- August 24th
Hot Chocolate 15k - November 2nd 

I love the fact that I have for once planned my race schedule for the year out. I would love one race a month for the year, but as of right now, I am missing February, June and December. If it doesn't happen that way, it is okay in my mind since this will be the most races I have done in a year time span. I am still considering running a full marathon, but not this year. This year I am focusing on myself and my base mileage and will decide next year. I have thought a lot about this and think I will build the base in 2014 then start training in January of 2015 knowing that as the months go by and we get closer to October, when the Chicago Marathon is run, I can sign up if that is really something I want to do. Having these races already planned really helps me to focus on my running, training and eating options to become the best me I can be.