Rock the Crossroads

Today, I took a very deliberate break from wedding-related tasks.

Although a few emails to vendors slipped in there, I can truthfully say that no stamps were broken out. I black-ink-free-pinky swear!

Instead, Dan and I enjoyed a nice, relaxing day. For me, that was voluntary. For Dan, it was pretty mandatory. Let’s just say that he had a fun bachelor’s party.

(On a related note, last night I realized just how uptight I’m going to be as a mother!)

Thanks to the day of relaxation, Dan was feeling better in the evening — but not quite good enough to race the Rock the Crossroads 5K we had booked for 7:30 at night. Fortunately, he was up for serving as my designated driver and cheerleader for the race!

Even though the race wasn’t until 7:30 and it only takes one hour to drive to Kansas City, we left with plenty of time to spare. Good thing we did, too, because there was a major traffic jam.

That just goes to show the importance of leaving time to spare before a race. We managed to make it to the start, find a parking spot,  pick up the packets and have a little pre-race photo fun.

Like I said, “fun…”

Before I knew it, people were lining up for the start.

Then the gun was off and so were we!

I started off with a pretty strong, but maintainable pace. However, as soon as I passed the first mile marker, we went around a corner and faced a long, long hill. I told myself to slow the pace down a bit and managed to push it up the hill. It just wasn’t pretty.

At that point, the nighttime heat was also getting to me. Let me tell you, 7:30 on a July night in Missouri is NOT cool.

I drug along for the final mile until we turned onto the straightaway to the finish. Then, I turned on the jets and passed people all the way through the end with a final time of 29:32.

Although it was no PR, it was a decent reintroduction to short-distance racing.

After cooling down and getting a little energy back, Dan and I got back in the car and set out on a mission to find food. That gave me something to be excited about.

However, I was sweaty and we were both starving so “nice” restaurants were off-limits. Fortunately, Chipotle came through for us!

Consumed: Veggie burrito bowl with rice, black beans, fajitas, pico de gallo, corn salsa, cheese, guacamole and lettuce.

I devoured that thing like a shark going after a minnow.

Back in the car, everything caught back up to me. Now I’m back home, showered and oh-so ready for bed!

Question: Have you ever done a nighttime race?