Weekend Rewind

Welcome to the last week of October!  Wow, that sure was a fast month!  I’m glad – as much as I love October I am so ready for November and the arrival of our baby girl!  21 days or less until she’s here, I can’t believe it!

Remember me telling you I was helping plan a 5k Glow Run in our little town?  Well, that took place this past weekend and boy am I glad it’s over!  Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun event!  But the stress I put myself in over this was ridiculous!  I’m not sure how someone who had never even attended a run before got roped into co-planning this and practically taking the lead but I did.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Don’t EVER let me help plan a big event like this while in my 3rd trimester again!!!  (Not that I’m ever going to be pregnant again, BUT!  DON’T EVER!!!)  I would wake up thinking of nothing but this run, stewing over the fear of no one signing up and no businesses sponsoring it, whether we’d get everything lined up – such as traffic control- or  not.  What about weather?  Do we really need to have a soup supper after?  And on and on and on.  It was exhausting!

So, Saturday, the day of the run, finally rolls around.  I get up bright and early to get myself ready for the day so I can meet Sarah, another co-planner, at the bank to pick up signs to use along the streets.  There were 4 big signs that read “Caution: Runners Ahead”.  We got those loaded into the back of my truck and then Sarah starts to tell me all about everything that wasn’t falling in to place like it should.  Ugh, bad way to start the day!  We part ways and I head home to start working on some last minute details.

That afternoon I took Aiden over to the golf clubhouse where we were starting and ending the run to take all 150 shirts and the other supplies I had for the run.  I laid out all the shirts according to size, stirred the chili that was brewing in the roasters and came home.  I was hoping for a short nap, knowing that day was going to be taxing on my body. Guess what – no nap happened.  I started having volunteers back out which meant I had to scramble to reassign people so all of the corners on the race route were covered and we still had enough volunteers back at the start/finish line to help Sarah and Sky, this third co-planner.  Ugh, I was stressing!  I finally got all of that worked out, but by that time I was so worked up there was no way I was falling asleep for a nap.  My original plan was to head back to the clubhouse at 4 but by 2:45 I couldn’t take it anymore so I hoped in the truck and headed over.

The settin up wasn’t too bad – I worked on hanging pictures of the race route and a poster listing all of our sponsors.  I folded and rearranged the shirts.  I stirred the chili.  I waited for the other gals and a few volunteers to show up.  Basically did busy work.  Then Sarah and Sky arrived and we started setting up the shoot where the runners would leave and come back through.  Because it was a glow run we wanted to try and light it up, so after much finagling and our helpers running home for extension cords we were able to get that all lit up with Christmas lights.  Just as we were finishing this up runners started to arrive to get signed in.

Because this was our first time planning this run we decided to go the easy route – no race packets or bibs, we only ‘counted’ the top 10 finishers, although we did let the other runners know their time as they crossed the finish line, and we only did a 5k instead of also having a 1 mile run/walk for families like they do at the town festival run.  None of us had ever planned one of these before so we were just trying to survive it, have fun and raise money for our cause, which is to re-route the trailhead that comes into town and add some bathrooms, a shelter and a nice parking area.  Currently the trailhead dumps you out into the middle of a farm chemical business – not pretty.

Before the race we had 92 runners registered – my goal was 50 runners so I was thrilled with this number!  At 5:30 when registration/check in started we had people coming in one after the other to get registered. We started to panic that the 20 extra registration forms we took weren’t going to be enough so we had someone run and make us 20 more copies.  We ended up with 117 runners total!!!  I still can’t believe it.  I’m sure to some of you this doesn’t sound like much but for our first time hosting this event I think we did pretty darn good! Add to that 2 surrounding towns chose the same night to host a Glow Run also and I really think we did awesome!  Remember, these are small towns!  Ours has a population of 1200!

After the run was over there was chili and potato soup served.  It was fun that so many people stuck around after to eat and hang out.  The run started at 6:30, everyone was done by 7:30 and by 8:45 we had everything cleaned up and packed away.  We had a ton of compliments on how fun it was which was really encouraging.  We are hoping to make this an annual event, each year raising funds for yet another project we have in store for our little town.  And each year I hope to build off the previous one – next year we will for sure add a 1 mile run/walk so more families will attend.  We did have almost 30 kids under the age of 10 signed up so not having it this year definitely didn’t deter all families, but we hope more people join in on the fun next year.

So, how did I handle the whole day?  Mentally I held it together and had fun.  Physically, oh wow.  It wasn't pretty.  I was practically in tears when we got home that night.  My whole body ached and hurt and felt horrible.  I definitely overdid it.  I woke up Sunday still sore, not quite as sore but still sore.  I gimped around here for awhile until finally coming to my senses and taking some Tylenol. That helped immensely and about 2 hours later I was feeling normal again.  But let me say one more time – DON’T EVER let me plan something like that in my 3rd trimester again!!! :)

So you’ve probably noticed this post is all words and no pictures.  I failed on this big time!  I had every intention of taking pictures of the run but I didn’t take one, not even one of me and the family all dressed in our bright a## pink shirts!!  I’m still bummed about this, I wanted to post pictures on our Facebook event page.  That’s for sure in my notes to change for next year!  That and about 100 other things!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend, and that it was relaxing with zero stress!  Up for this week: a baby check up, celebrating my niece’s confirmation, celebrating my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary, and of course – TRICK OR TREATING!  Another busy, jam packed week around here.  So glad that once the baby arrives (in 3 weeks!!!) things settle down a bit.  We’ll have Thanksgiving, then jump into December and all that fun, but most of those events are on the weekends so during the week we won’t have to run too much.  I’m ready to slow down, sit and snuggle with my Tatie Tot and Baby Girl and just enjoy life.

Have a great week!