This is always my best race of the year and this year was no exception. Fastest 5k of the year by over a minute and half. I beat 38 minutes...by one second. I love this race. I'm not sure why this is always my best race. Unfortunately I wasn't as fast as last year. :(

They changed the race to Saturday from Sunday (Boo!)  We had to rush down to the expo after work to get our bib. We stopped at the RVR booth to see Paul and check out the massaging leg system. It made my toes numb! 

Lindsey, Paula's sister, was running the full and we met up with her and her husband at the Expo. They were going to go to Olive Garden but called me shortly after they left to ask if they could join us at Pagilli's for some pizza as the wait for OG was over an hour. 

The morning of the race we stopped by Caribou Coffee and ran into Brenda. She was also running the half. It was good to see her again. She stuck around me for a couple miles but I eventually lost her. 

DJ and Tim came and cheered us on in a couple spots on the race course. 

I had high expectations for this race since the last time I ran it was almost under 3 hours. Through 8 miles it was going well...then we hit mud and a chewed up road and that destroyed my mojo.  I struggled the last 5 miles and finished on par with my halfs this year...3:11. They changed the race course from the last time I ran it. But that doesn't account for the 11 minutes longer it took me this time. Boo. I really need to train better for the next race...in 3 weeks. Yikes! 

We surprised Byron this weekend! Paula planned the weekend. We came down for a 2 mile trail run. I'm not a big trail run person so I walked most of it with DJ. We walked all the uphills, run down the downhills and mixed it up on the straight aways. I technically finished DFL (dead f*%king last) because they called DJ's number first but whatevs. It was very cold too for October. And it even snowed. :(

 

We had lunch and birthday cake and played some games.

Then Chris and Banyan showed up!

Eric had a great run. Me not so much, especially the last half. First 5 miles were as expected. But I was stupid and thought to myself I didn’t need any fuel for just 10 miles and drank too much water at mile 5 to curve my hunger and that failed. It made my stomach upset and I was still hungry. I tried running best I could. That is the last time I think to myself it is ONLY 10 miles. Haha! 

I was so hungry that immediately after I crossed the finish line and got my medal, I went to the table of mixed fruit/peaches. I grabbed a container of peaches opened it up and chugged it. Eric tried to give me a spoon and I said I don't need that. The funny thing is I don't like peaches!  I was so hungry, I didn't care. We went into the Champions tent (ie. we run a lot of their races so we get special privileges) and had a bagel, breakfast burrito and a chicken Caesar wrap...oh and a Mountain Dew. I don't drink a lot of pop so that was a rare thing for me. 

On Saturday we joined Greg, Celeste, Evelyn and Carmen at the Sever's Corn Maze. This is the first year in their new, larger location. The theme is Dinosaurs. It was a fun time!