Whine & Cheese Run Club: Jill: Shamrock Shuffle Finally (a.k.a. Beginning of Month of Sickness which is why it took me forever)

Yeah, I know it's only taken me 6 weeks to get around to posting my race recap. Don't judge. The Thursday before the race marked Day 1 of the Month-of-Never-Ending-Sickness that descended on my household. It all started with a puking toddler and ran it's way through colds, coughs, pink eye, and back to another puking stomach bug. Everyone had it in some form or another, although the baby and I escaped the worst. My husband quickly came down with the first stomach bug a day after the toddler. He crawled into bed Friday morning, and I didn't see him again until Saturday afternoon, well after the race was over. Needless to say he didn't get to run the 10K portion he signed up for.

First let me start with a quick kudos to Stephanie who was (after all the bitching and moaning) really ready to find another race. When we looked into signing up as a team, we discovered that it was a charity event and that our team could receive a small grant if we recruited at least 25 members. Instead of running as the Whine and Cheese Club, Steph got approval from our school district to sign up as a charity team and if we got the money, we would split the money to pay for buses for our various field trips. And so, Steph began relentlessly ~~nagging~~ recruiting team members by sending email after email after email after email begging and pleading for other staff members to join us for the walk or the run.

Amazingly enough, we actually got the 25 team members and the money. Steph will be taking her 10th graders to the theater to see Julius Caesar and I now have bus money to take my Environmental Club to Mammoth Caves next month.

Alright so my race day started with the typical gear check. Apparently there was also a chance to win more prize money as the most spirited/recognizable team. In typical Steph fashion, she went ~~overboard~~ shopping for St. Paddy's day themed gear. The white shirt she bought me said this on the back:

I'm not lucky, I'm good.

Sheesh. I felt like a teenager.

I wore almost everything on this table.

We also decided that as a tribute to Jill over at JoggingJeans.com (who we love to death) we would wear jeans or jeggings. Steph looked high and low and finally scored us some jeggings, although mine were a little small and I felt like I had to pour my postpartum belly into them.

My first pair of jeggings

Compared to Steph's goody bag of gear, the official race swag seemed a little sad:

Official shirt and tiny green bracelet

Since the toddler and hubby were both sick in bed, I headed out with this girl to keep me company. Club member Habanero Cheddar agreed to walk with her in the stroller so I could run and so she could walk with SmokedGouda who is pregnant again (YAY!!) and is off of running for awhile.

We got to the race and met up with most of our team, although poor Mark wasn't able to find us at all. We soon figured out that it wasn't the most organized race we've been to. There were over 3,000 racers and no port-a-potties in sight. Later, we heard there were a few but they were nowhere near the start/finish area where everyone was hanging out. There was 3 divisions: walkers, 5K and 10K and a mass start with no separation or staggering of divisions. It was so bunched up that one of our co-workers, trying to run a 10K PR, actually fell while trying to get around all the walkers at the beginning. There was also no official way to enter or be judged for the most spirited group award. So all of our costumes and decorations were for nothing except our own pleasure at wearing goofy costumes and decorations. The one aid station we saw was set up at this really narrow part of the course and had one poor lady trying to keep up with with cups of water. We didn't need to stop, but we talked about how we would be worried about stopping and causing a traffic jam because of how narrow the passage was. Not well thought out at all. (Steph and I are planners, so we get easily annoyed by poor planning. We've even considered starting our own event planning business. I, for one, think we should start with races!)

The after party was interesting. It had a wide variety of food and and people. For example, some kids martial arts group was there doing demonstrations:

Clifford the Big Red Dog was there:

Some of the food options included Panera bagels (healthy), coffee (ok), Taco Bell (wtf?), and beer:

All in all it was a fun morning. I got to spend time with some good friends, while seeing Steph meet her goal of running her first 5K the whole way through. Big thanks to all friends, family and co-workers who ran on our team and helped us meet our goal!