Today is my birthday.
On Sunday, I ran my birthday 5k.
I popped out of bed. It was dark and cold. I knew it was going to be the greatest day.
I grabbed my running clothes and stepped onto the cold cold bathroom tile. I ran downstairs to get coffee and breakfast.
I saw that Mr. Tea left me a note to wake him at 7am. Next to the coffee maker, JMan left me a note saying, "I'm home."
Today is my birthday 5k. Googs was planning on meeting us there. I knew they both had Halloween parties the night before. It could be a little ugly for them today.
Everyone wakes up, and we head to the race. Mr. Tea drops me at the start, so I can do my warmup. The one thing I noticed immediately was that the course was extremely hilly. The race is in a suburb, very close to Denver. Denver is flat. I knew the course would probably not give me the PR I wanted, but I was going to run hard. I've been running hill repeats. I've been running surges up hills. I was ready for this course.
I met up with JMan and Mr. Tea at the start. The race starts in 2 minutes. Googs is nowhere to be found. I was a little sad, but I said "have fun" to Mr. Tea and JMan and head to the front of the line.
The race started, and I ran. I took off on the steep downhill to get my position past all the slower runners. I know how to run hills. I passed people on the uphills (first time ever). I never backed off.
It was the longest 5k of my life. Uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill.....are there any flats here?
With the last half mile, I went into an all out sprint. I crossed the finish line and immediately turned around to run back and find JMan and Mr. Tea.
Around the 2 mile mark, I see them in the distance. They are having an animated conversation. Seeing them made me smile. I ran up to them. JMan immediately said, "Googs is here. AND HE'S RUNNING."
Running in an extremely hungover state.
Just then Googs appeared out of nowhere and jumped on top of Mr. Tea.
We walked the remaining mile as a family. I watched them. I listened to their crazy conversations. I couldn't stopped smiling. I was so happy my heart hurt. This is what I wanted.
We crossed the finish line.
Afterwards, we spent 20 minutes looking for Googs' car....who couldn't remember exactly where he parked in his rushed, hungover, and tired state.
We loaded up the cars and head to breakfast.
Seeing them all together, having a great time......it was the best birthday present I could have asked for.
I'm not perfect. I'm not the stereotypical woman who goes ga ga over babies. I don't even like kids. I didn't want to have kids. I had no idea how to be a mom.
I looked over at them, joking around, talking.....but, somewhere along the line, I got things right.
