Dirty tricks and the beauty of youth

Ready before dawn

What on earth would make this anti-cold, 51 year old woman don a tutu and get up in the wee hours on a cold January morning to run a 5K?  When her 23 year old, new runner daughter says, “Hey, Mom, want to run a race?”  Yes, there are many things we do for our children that we won’t do for anyone else.  And, I’m so excited that she’s caught the running bug that I put that tutu on and ran with a smile on my face.  Well, mostly.  It was really cold.  And, she beat me.  But, we’ll see about that come spring.

This race hurt.   I don’t do cold.  I train in the cold weather by carefully calculating the warmest part of the day and running then.  I know, I’m a wimp.  Compared to some, it’s not even that cold.  Even so.  It’s cold to me. I hate the way cold makes my throat and lungs feel.  I turn into a hypochondriac and begin to feel pain in body parts I don’t even have.  If you’ve followed my blogs from the beginning, you know that my first major race was the Mississippi Blues Half Marathon in 2010.  One of the coldest winters Mississippi had in many years.  Seventeen degrees at the start, nineteen at the finish.  Still the race I’m the proudest of, but thinking of it makes me want to bury myself in my nice warm bed on a cold January morning.

But, I’m glad I did this one.  At the start, Kaitlyn was trash talking me about kicking my butt.  Then, she tried wheedling a little by telling me that her self esteem would be terribly damaged if I beat her.  She is her father’s daughter, no dirty trick stays in the bag.  I told her, “Suck it up, buttercup, you aren’t 5 anymore.  If you beat me on this one, it’ll be because you earned it.”  We started too fast, as usual, but we had to get ahead of the walkers.  Kaitlyn was busy mugging for her dad & adjusting her iPod and ran into a sign, probably the best moment of the race.  We were running with precious friends of ours, Amanda Beech, champion tutu maker, and Amanda “Piper” Howard.  Amanda Beech made my beautiful tutu and hers and ran the race even after just recovering from the flu.  She is one on my real life heroes in SO many ways, running today after being sick just adds to her mythic aura.

We stayed together for the first mile, then on mile two, I broke away.  I found my rhythm and headed out.  Unfortunately, by mile three, my rhythm had coated my throat and made breathing difficult.  I felt myself slowing, and sure enough, my girl came thundering past, pausing long enough to pinch me on the rear on her way by.  I had to smile.  She earned it.  I’ll get her when it warms up.

Didn’t PR, but my time was good enough for an AG win.  Of course, when you’re the oldest broad there, that’s a given.   We followed it up with breakfast with my man (who was there to document and cheer us on) at IHOP, then headed home.  I think Kaitlyn slept the rest of the day.  Ahh, to be 23 again…

Kaitlyn at the start right before she crashed into a sign.

Kaitlyn finishing ahead of me – you can see my blue tutu behind her

My beautiful friend, Amanda

Finally at the finish. I have to say, I really like the tutu…