Jealousy’s a Disease: My You Go Girl 10K Recap

“Jealousy’s a disease! Get well soon!”

My office-mate has a plethora of funny sayings. This is one of my favorites. And it was, oh, so fitting over the weekend.

There were about a bazillion running bloggers getting together this weekend.

TMB and Katye flew in on Friday and toured Seattle with Jill and Zoë, had a slumber party at Mel‘s that night, and then hung out all day with Amanda and Mel on Saturday, and then met up with about 20 other bloggers for a carb load dinner on Saturday night in advance of the You Go Girl 10K and Half Marathon.

I didn’t go to any of it. I couldn’t. Friday was sort of a hectic day. I had some mom stuff going on and couldn’t figure out how to get to downtown Seattle, then back for T Junior’s nap and then down to Tacoma to pick up my packet. I live about 45 minutes from downtown Seattle and 40 minutes from Tacoma. I’m east of both cities — like on the point of a triangle. Everyone knows how bad at math I am. I just couldn’t figure out how to make the schedule work.

Mr. T ended up getting home early on Friday and we met Alma and her cute little guy at the YGG expo. Alma is so sweet — she brought me a card and an awesome girly-camo BondiBand that matches my girly-camo RunningSkirt!

The expo was teeny, but SweatyBands and One More Mile had huge displays. I didn’t mind the small expo, but I do have one little complaint: The half marathoners got better swag (long-sleeve tech tee and a tote bag) than the 10Kers (short-sleeve tech tee) AND they put the 10K t-shirt pick-up table over in a dark corner, half behind a booth while the Halfers table was front and center. What the hell? I guess I would’ve paid more to get the same swag. But that’s not even it.

I just felt like if you’ve never run a half before and this is your first 10K that you would feel like you were somehow not as good as a half-marathoner. Like you were about as small as the expo was. But isn’t the point of the You Go Girl race to encourage women to get moving — no matter how far you can or want to run? Isn’t the point to be supportive of one another? I’m probably reading too much into it. But I’m just sayin’.

Saturday was the day before my 33rd birthday. Mr. T felt strongly about spending the day with me to celebrate my birthday. I was so torn. I wanted to hang with my friends, but I also wanted to be with my boys. Family comes first and I said “no” to the carb load dinner.

Mr. T and T Junior took me boot shopping (hells yeah!) and we went to Trophy Cupcakes (double-hells yeah!). We had a great day, but I was very aware that a ton of awesome bloggy-runner ladies were meeting that evening and I was missing out. I was sick, jealous.

But you know what I remembered? I have a husband who loves me, who wants to be around me (even though sometimes I wouldn’t even want to be around me). And I have the most awesome kid ever who loves me, too. And I love hanging out with them. So, yes, I’m sorry I missed getting to know some of you on a more in-depth level, but I’m not sorry I spent the day with my family.

Okay, that’s enough of that. Now, for the race!

Inaugural You Go Girl Half Marathon and 10K
Obviously, I didn’t do any training for this race. I only started running again a few weeks ago. But I did do my run-walk routine (run 90 seconds, walk 2 minutes for 20 minutes) on Friday. Saturday night, I put out all my running stuff, which took longer than usual. Everything has been stored away, so I had to round it all up, charge AJ II (my Garmin), my phone, etc.

And, guess what? I asked Mr. T and T Junior to come to the race. And they came. Even though it was raining and they had to sit in the car forever and wait till I texted them that we were getting close to the finish and the car ended up dying and had to be charged. Troopers. Love them.

First, they dropped me off near the start and I ran down to meet my friend (from high school!) Jamie. I had her number and she needed to check a bag. I was a tad early and there was no Honey Bucket line, so I took the opportunity before it got crowded. I walked out and there they were: two boxers. The streak continues! (In total, I saw four boxers during the race — one of them was even running it.)

I found Jamie easily and we checked her bag, then headed to the designated meeting spot where everyone was getting ready.

Then I made Jamie my personal photographer:

Oh wait, one more group shot. “Let’s try a jumping one,” J said. Everyone that ran Mercer Island groaned. “At least it’s before the race,” someone said.

Mercer Island post-race “Jump Shot”:

You Go Girl pre-race “Jump Shot”:

Then everyone sang me the “Happy Birthday Song,” while I pretended to be bashful.

Once all the photos were taken, we headed up
the hill to the start. We chatted for a while and I took a picture of Alma’s sweet “tat”-sleeves.

Then one of Veronica with a few names she’d written on her wrist. She was running in memory of a friend who recently and suddenly passed away.

It reminded me how lucky we were to all just be there together, having fun, despite the rain. Supposedly, the National Anthem was sung, but I didn’t hear it. And then we were all moving forward.

Chelsea (injured), Zoë (pregnant) and I (on the verge of a comeback) hung at the back of the pack as we were planning to walk/jog together. We started off jogging and laughed at “It’s Raining Men” blaring as we crossed the start mats.

The next 5.5 miles we ran when we wanted to and walked when we needed to. The conversation was great and we laughed and chatted the whole way. We also saw Kadie and her adorable daughter, Al, along the way.

Most of the race went through downtown streets, but then we turned into a muddy park, which was a nice change of scenery. I loved this old greenhouse.

The race went by way too fast. At 5 miles, I texted Mr. T that we were close. About a half-mile later, there they were: Mr. T in his navy raincoat (that’s really for fly fishing) and T Junior on Mr. T’s shoulders in his bright yellow “Fireman” jacket, hood cinched around his baby face, almond eyes bewildered. Even when he saw me, he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Then I got an idea. “T Junior, run with me!” Zoë and Chelsea wanted to end with a kick, so they took off and I jogged along with my 28-month-old, now in his t-shirt, fleece sweat pants and his little Nike running shoes. His golden hair glittered with mist even though the sky was thick with clouds.

We ran past a water stop and there were cups on the wet asphalt. “Watch out!” I yelled, but he jumped over a crumpled cup. “You hurdled it!” I said.

T Junior proceeded to hurdle over every cup after that, each time yelling, “I huwrdled it!” After we passed the cups, he said, “Mommy, you came’d!” I guess Mr. T had been telling him I was coming up for a little while. Then, he kept saying, “Mommy, we’wre wunning fast!”

I know, I told him. “You’re running super fast!”

“NO!” he yelled. “YOU’wre wunning fast, Mommy!”

I hadn’t realized we were a half-mile from the finish. I’d thought we were closer, so I started to worry that his little legs were going to give out. But he just kept running — big stride with toes pointed, arms swinging. I could hear people pointing him out and I just tried to soak in the moment. There was nobody behind us, so we weren’t in anyone’s way. I just jogged along, encouraging my little mini-me. And then I could hear my friends cheering and Alma captured us crossing the finish.

After I stopped, I was reunited with all my 10K friends and we all had to shout “Stop!” to T Junior, who kept on running. Picture that football scene from Forrest Gump.

We chatted and I wondered why Jamie had stopped mid-race to tease her hair.

She said the rain did it. Suuuuure.

And then Mr. T was there, and we hung around for a little while to see a few of our Halfer friends finish before heading home. T Junior was really tired.

The rest of the day was great, too — the Seahawks won, we went to a yummy dinner, ate more cupcakes, season premiere of Amazing Race — best birthday ever*.

*Not counting the one on which Mr. T proposed.