April Beginnings and 36.7 Miles

April was a very busy and exciting month. Before I get to the main events, here are some of the fun highlights:

Devry got into my makeup for the first time and applied some mascara. The bottom left corner was actually her first reaction when I showed her. It was pretty funny. But the shock wore off fairly quickly and soon she was laughing. 

On another Sunday walk we finally managed to find the river! The Bosque trails runs "along" the river, but it's not directly by it, so we had never managed to actually get down to the Rio Grande banks. Well now we can check that one off our bucket list! Haha! Unfortunately the river is not worth fishing. That's one thing that has been a drawback to living here. No good fishing unless you drive at least 1.5-2 hours away.

The love of Elmo made a strong comeback in April. Pierscen always loved Elmo because he used to watch Sesame Street on Netflix. However, it's no longer on Netflix so Devry really doesn't know him as well. That being said, we put new batteries in the big talking Elmo and Devry has been so happy! She may not have ever seen Sesame Street, but she adores him just as much. 

We visited the library one day and learned that Magma, the library beta fish was "not feeling well" and was away for a time. They had a get well card for the kids to sign. It was pretty cute. Sadly Magma did not recover. :( 

Here we are at 17 weeks. And this is where the fun of this post happens. 

Necia's family came to spend their Spring Break with us! Their motivation was two-fold. 1. Once upon a time Necia told me that if I ever decided to do a half marathon, she would come do it with me. Even if that meant driving all the way down here. I didn't expect her to do it, and even tried to talk her out of making the long, boring trip down here, but she said a deal was a deal. I found a half marathon here on April 8th, about one year after I started running. Granted, I did not know I was pregnant at the time that I registered, but that was a whole other matter. It turned out that the race also fell on their Spring Break, so she signed up the whole family for the run - Samantha, Paxton, and Deiderik in the 5K, and Issy in the 1k with Pierscen. No doubt about it, it was going to be a party!

They arrived on Thursday in the afternoon. They went to the park at the bottom of the street while I worked on dinner. We ate, then went to another park until we were all tired and ready to go to bed. 

The next morning we went to the zoo.  

Having cousins here meant something extra special for my kids: a train ride! We've never done the train before because it's not included in my yearly pass and I'm cheap. :) But we wanted to see as much as possible with the time we had, so we did the zoo for a while and then hoped on the train and headed over to the aquarium. 

I'm sure Necia's kids weren't overly impressed, but my kids loved it! Haha. 

We saw the Aquarium and part of the gardens before catching the train back to the zoo/our car.

And by that point, the kids were thoroughly exhausted! All three passed out pretty quick. We drove over to pick up our packets for the big race and then went to find food. 

Pierscen was still so exhausted he had a super hard time waking up and just buried himself in the corner of the booth. Evidence of a good day. :)

And there it is in all its glory... all seven shirts and bibs laid out for the morning. What possessed me to do this again? Oh yeah - my sister! Thanks a lot Necia! Haha.

We were a little surprised at how small of a race this was. At least it felt that way. But it was a beautiful morning (though I complained about being cold and Necia just laughed and laughed at me.) I was really happy to have some hot air balloons floating by to help get the true New Mexico vibe. :)

Ready to go...

Necia of course was way faster than me, as anticipated. We said our goodbyes and the finish line and I wished her luck. She did amazing!

My overall goal was to come in at or under 2 hours and 45 mins. I really wanted to keep that 12 min/mile average, but I missed that by just a little bit. I told myself that there was no reason to push - and I planned on doing a lot more interval running/walking. But once I got started, I felt great and actually ran the first 7 miles straight through. That's when I found the first toilet. There were only two on the entire course, one at mile 7 and one at mile 9. This is my biggest complaint. Two bathrooms? Total?! I decided to stop to use the bathroom. It wasn't an absolute necessity, but being preggo, I always feel like I need to go. Better safe than sorry. I was tracking my own time on MapMyRun, so I stopped it for the potty break to see how much time it cost me. Seven minutes. SEVEN MINUTES! That is astronomical in race times. I was really frustrated. But that's what happens when there was only one porta potty while six people waiting in line to use it. Sigh... oh well. 

After that, I had to walk a lot more. Which was not fun. In fact, it hurt way more to walk than it did to run, but I didn't have the stamina to run. This was seriously so hard! 

As I neared the end my family was there cheering me on. It is a pretty awesome thing to have them there, yelling, cheering, and running beside you. I definitely teared up. In the picture below you can see Pierscen running beside me and Samantha and Necia just outside the cone running the last length with me as well. 

Pierscen held out his arms like a rocket and I used his enthusiasm to try and "blast off to the finish line."

I did it! I did it! I did it! 

My official time was 2:39:25. I beat my 2:45 goal - even with my potty break. but without that break my time was 2:32 which meant that I beat my 12 min/mile goal too. I was pretty happy with my results.

In the mean time, my hubby hero got everyone else to the race and found where they were supposed to run. Devry was not thrilled about being the only one without a bib and would not the leave the house until Ryan made her one. Hahaha!

Samantha, Paxton and Deiderik all ran the 5K. You can spot the three of them in the middle of the picture below. 

Pierscen and Isabel ran the 1K. 

I love that this kid enjoys running! It has been so much fun to do some of these things with him. 

It's was bright - but how cute is this picture? They are only a couple years apart, but he adores her so so much. They are the best of cousins and friends. 

We stuck around for the results for the kids. Turns out Samantha and Paxton both took 2nd place in their age division. Deiderik was really upset because he knew that his time was faster than what was being rewarded. So they went back and asked the officials and it turns out that because he crossed the finish line twice - once for his face and once with Necia, that the second reading was the one was the one they were using. They were able to see his real time and immediately corrected it - giving him a 2nd place medal for his division as well. How awesome is that!!!

Ryan took all the kids home and Necia and I took the shuttle back to the parking lot where we started and then headed home. 

Here's the whole clan in our shirts and medals. 

This run was really hard for me. I was definitely NOT prepared, but it was really fun and of course I am really proud that I was able to push through and that my amazing family was there to support me and run beside me. Thank you, Necia, for making this happy. Thank you for joining me and bringing your kids along for some wonderful memories. So grateful to have you!