Bloomsday

I see a pattern emerging.  I do really well with my eating over the week and on the weekend it all goes downhill so I start my week at 149 (ish) and then work hard to get back to 147(ish) by Wednesday (my weigh in) and then Friday it starts all over again.  In my defense, my weekends have been really busy lately.  There's only been a handful of them that I haven't done something the last few months. 

This weekend was no different.  This weekend was Bloomsday!  However, I don't feel like I ate off the walls this particular weekend.  In fact, I think I ate fairly decent (except the 3 donuts and handful of licorice . . . ), only one meal out and that was at Subway.  However, Sunday I did not drink enough water on Monday (drove home). 

Friday I went to my parents' house and stayed the night.  Earlier in the week my dad went to the hospital because of chest pains and was there for several days, so it was really nice to go visit with him for a little while (he's doing okay, just tired and some adjustments to his meds and an admonishment to lose some weight).  Saturday morning I went for a run.  I was planning on doing 5 miles on a fairly flat gravel road a little ways from my parents' house.  Once I got out there I noticed the wind was HORRIBLE and of course, I decided to run with the wind on the way out, so I was running against the wind on the way back to my car.  Not very good planning.  I ended up only running a little more than 2 miles away from my car, to equal 4.34 miles total.  When I turned around I could no longer hear my audiobook, so I stopped to put music on instead.  I figured even if I couldn't hear it very well, I'd still have a little sound to listen to other than the whistling of the wind.  I was stopped, looking at my phone when I looked down at my feet and saw this:

It was only a bullsnake, which, I hear, are very good for keeping mice away, but it definitely startled me and I jumped away.  Then I thought, I have to take a picture.  =)  I left him sunning himself on the rocks and ran back to my car in the horrendous wind.  (Seriously, it was bad.)

Saturday afternoon I went with my sister Barbara, who lives close to my parents, to Spokane to my aunt's house.  I left my kids with my Mom overnight, and Barbara left her daughter with her ex-husband and her son with my Mom, so we were kidless.  =)  We didn't do anything, just hung out with my 2 aunts that live there and they had my cousin's kids there, so we visited with them for a little while. 

Sunday morning was Bloomsday and I had to wait on my own this year.  Last year my sister, Nancy, and I got there really early and waited for over an hour to start.  This year, since I was by myself and I'm not as concerned with being on time (or early) as Nancy is, I was there only 15 min before the race started, but because they do a stagger start, I still had to wait another 40 min after the official start time.  When you register for the race you have to put your estimated finish time and then they say they will put you in the appropriate color group for that time.  However, because I walked it last year, they didn't accept that I would finish in an hour and fifteen min (what I put as my estimated time), so they still stuck me in color Blue, which is the 6th group out of 8 (only walkers and strollers behind me, although I think Blue was also considered a walking group).  I could have mailed in proof of another race that showed I could do 7.46 miles in my estimated time, but I was lazy and didn't bother.

The crowd while I waited.

Obligatory selfie

We started moving around 9:40, I have no idea how long it took me to get to the start line.  I didn't look at my phone when we got close.  I was up front in the group, right at the rope that we had to walk behind to the start line.  Last year Nancy and I were right smack in the middle of the group we were assigned (Lilac, the group behind Blue) so I didn't realize that they stop your group at the start line for a few minutes to let the group in front of you get a little distance.  When they started my group, I had a glorious half block of open road before I caught up with the Orange group walkers (seriously, how did they get walkers in the Orange group and make me be in the Blue group?) 

You can barely see the start line here, but I didn't want to wait
to take the picture because I wanted to get my phone set up for
the run.



I had been really nervous about the hills.  They talk about Doomsday, but there are a couple really steep hills before Doomsday.  They are shorter, but still steep.  I told myself that it was okay if I had to walk up any of the hills, but specifically Doomsday. I finally admitted to myself at the beginning of the race that I REALLY wanted to not stop and walk, but I didn't pressure myself, just a goal that if I failed I would not beat myself up about.

 I think the hardest part of the whole thing was weaving in and out of all the people.  Seriously, you never break free from the crowd.  And the worst thing about the hills was the people that I had been following that were running, would suddenly stop in front me and start walking, not thinking about the people behind that were running.  They had signs all over saying walkers to the right and runners to the left, but people definitely didn't follow those signs well.

 

A lot of runners moved over to the sidewalks, which they said we weren't supposed to do, but if I had to run on the road, I would have been walking the whole thing, or running  double the amount of miles because of all the weaving.  Although, I still came up on walkers on the sidewalks (very annoying) and the first hills had no sidewalks and Doomsday had lots of spectators on the sidewalk. 

 

I was leapfrogging a guy most of the beginning of the race.  He was behind me for awhile and passed me, and then I would pass him and so on.  When we approached Doomsday, I was behind him.  He slowed way down, but I thought that was okay because I didn't want to go too fast.  However, he slowed down too much for me, so I passed him.  Then the whole way up I was thinking that I couldn't stop because I passed him and I didn't want him to see me have to walk.  =)  I think that was the only thought that kept me running up the entire hill.  You read that right, I ran up the entire hill.  =)  I didn't see that guy again, so I must have lost him somewhere on the hill.

 

I forgot to mention that I needed to go to the bathroom at the very start, but the lines were so long and I was so worried that I would miss the start that I didn't go.  I thought once we started the port-a-potties on the course wouldn't be so busy. I was wrong.  Long, long lines at every port-a-potty I passed.  I didn't have to go too bad, so I just kept going.  After I got up Doomsday hill I passed mile 6 and saw a port-a-potty with no line, so I decided to run by the door and see if it was available, it was, so I jumped in and used it.  As I left it, I started running immediately and a guy passing saw me and said "way to go, use the bathroom and don't lose anytime leaving."  I didn't realize that was an unusual way to exit a port-a-potty during a race.  =)

 

My Mom, aunt, sister, cousin's kid, and Maddox were all waiting not long after that along the course for me to go by.  I stopped and said a quick hi and hugged Maddox, who was shooting a helicopter with a water gun, and went on.  My aunt took a video of it, but of course, I can't get it on here.  =(

 

I finished the race with the official time of 1:10:15. 

 

After finishing, looking back at the finish line.

The finish line obligatory selfie,
with the finish line in the background.

The way the race is set up, you finish and then have to walk across a bridge and down a ways to a park where you pick up your free finisher's tshirt.  They say that you can't get a tshirt unless you finish, but if you have your tag and just hand it to them, I don't understand how they would know you didn't finish, but whatever.  As I was walking to the tshirt pickup, I saw this and had to take a picture.

The finish line is camouflaged in the trees at the other end of
bridge.

This year they decided to make all the race photos free.  I was excited about that.  Not to mention that I have never had a race photo of me because I've never had a friend or family member at a race to take a photo.  And any race I've done that has had a photographer, for some reason never has a picture of me, or they didn't offer them for the race I did (even though every other year they've had pictures).  Soooo, here are my race photos, which I am excited about even though they are not great photos, I obviously make a funny face while I run.

Where am I?

Under the arrow, of course. =)

We went back to my aunt's house for lunch and I visited for a little while, then drove back to my parents' house Sunday afternoon.  I visited with my dad for a little while, he didn't go to Spokane because of his recent hospital stay, so I told him about the race and we messed around online to see if we could find video of me.  One of the local stations said they had 10 min increments of the finish line, but when I went to the time I crossed the finish line (10:47ish), which should have been in the 1040-1050 increment video (of course) the video starts at 1049, and we couldn't find any video that started with 1040 or so, just the before and after that particular 10 min.  I shouldn't be surprised by this, it happens to me all the time.  What I should be surprised about is that they had not 1 but 2 full on pictures of me, that is the really surprising news.  =) 

I had to come back to Mt. Vernon early enough to go to court (for work) on Monday, so we left at about 830am, and drove nonstop.