Day of the Tread: Race Report

Running with my daughter was just simply a wonderful experience. The whole week before this race, she would ask people what they were wearing for THEIR Halloween race. She thinks it's perfectly normal that every family runs. And I love that about her.

I think you already know about "stroller-gate" as I'm beginning to call it. Long story short, the stroller that had gone through training for 3 marathons and a half dozen half marathons would eventually get delivered 2 hours after the race. I'm still not happy about Continental's lack of concern, but I'm not about to let this get the better of me. So I'm not going to harp about it in this blog. We had a great time and the "rental" held up pretty well. Besides, B got to relax in the rented jogging stroller like it was a barcolounger. It was really quite funny. She looked at me at one point...I think around mile 2 and said she was just going to take a rest period while I ran. Really?


I gotta say this was the first race where even the cops monitoring traffic commented that they couldn't believe I was doing the 10k portion with a stroller. One guy asked if I had been pushing the stroller the entire time. Are you serious? I can just picture races that test your endurance with challenges like having you run one mile of a course pushing a stroller - yeah, that must be it! People commented on how hard it looked pushing B up the hill. And it was a doozy of a hill, I tell you. The last half mile was quite a challenging climb, especially pushing 40+ pounds. And knowing I had to climb the hill twice, since the 10k course was two loops of the 5k course, was tough. The course was a typical urban course, but we got the opportunity to spend most of the first loop with an increible 8-year-old. He's been running 5k races since he was 7 and this was his third. He was hoping to PR. He has 2 dogs and his mom is speedy, as she was a couple minutes ahead of us. After the race, he came up to me with his mom and said, "There's the bumblebee lady I ran with!" It's such a small world, but his mother is originally from Mentor. Small, local races are good for that.

After the race, a quick shower, and a light snack, we headed off to find the Golden Crown Panaderia for some Green Chili Bread and biscochitos, then to Explora! science museum for Bridget to have some fun. This place was amazing and we explored for over 3 hours. We could have made a second day at this place and still not see everything.


This was my second trip to Albuquerque and I look forward to another visit in the coming years to explore more of New Mexico, especially Santa Fe. Lots of costumes, the Devil as an announcer, meeting a girl dressed as a runaway bride, seeing a family dressed as a hotdog (dad) with mom as ketchup and kid as mustard were just some of the highlights. Running with an 8-year-old hoping to PR reminds me of what a great community runners are. Seeing Bridget play and learn at Explora! and sampling some delicious bakery items really made this trip grand, Overall, a fun day finishing with 10:41 mile average, great weather, and a wonderful trip with my daughter as we checked off our 28th state!