Purdue Challenge 5k Race

So today I walked a 5k race with my kids.  

Because, you know, that's a really fun thing to do.

No, wait.  That's not it.  

I did it because several months ago Lance was like "Hey, we should do this race because my company will pay for it.  Do you think Spencer and Josh would like to do it, too?"  And I was like, "Totally, let's do this."  And the boys were like "Yeah!  We wanna do it!"  And so I figured I would start training to run it while Lance walked with the boys because I have been running off and on since this past summer.

But then the winter that never ends came, and I wasn't able to run pretty much all of December through February because it was just so dang @#$@@!!! cold outside and we don't have a treadmill.  And then Lance found out he would be gone the weekend of the race, which meant I would need to walk it with the boys, which meant I had even less incentive to train for it.

And then I decided that if I was walking it with Spencer and Josh, rather than forcing Tess and Cole on someone at 7:30 on a Saturday morning I would just borrow a jogging stroller and take them all with me.  (Shout out to the Deidra, a.k.a. the stroller queen, for letting me borrow her awesome B.O.B. jogging stroller. It was really nice!)

So that's what I did.

Things started out a little tricky.  We parked in this parking garage that was pretty far from the race, but the website told us to park there!  (Moral: don't always trust the website.)  And we were running a little late, so we had to book it to the race to get our numbers and stuff, so Spencer and Josh were kinda worn by the time we got to the actual race.

Spencer and Josh were very impressed with the number of people there.  I'm not sure what they expected.  They were also impressed with Purdue's "World's Largest Drum" and getting to high five Purdue Pete while we waited in the very back with all of the other strollers.  (There were a good number of people with kids in strollers, but no one else had four children total with them!)

We had time to snap a quick picture before the race started:

Yeah, not the world's greatest picture, but it was bright out and I couldn't really see my screen.

It must be noted that it was the perfect day for a race: cool, a little breezy, and just all around pleasant.

Finally, the race started and we were off!  Josh was excited to give all the volunteers high fives, especially the Purdue Cheerleaders.

We walked at a pretty good pace the entire race, considering I was lugging along 4 children and there were a lot of hills.  

About a 1/3 of a mile in Josh whined "Hooooowww much fuuuurrrther?"  You can imagine the rest of the race.  Him whining, Spencer and I wanting to go faster, but Josh literally holding on to the stroller and slowing us down.  (This was not fun, although it was a pretty good work out.)

At around 1.5 miles Josh started talking about stopping to take a rest; I knew that if we did that there would be no way we would ever finish.  So I decided that the best tactic in my arsenal was bribery.  I told him that if he finished the race - with minimal whining and complaining - we would go to Pink Walrus. (His favorite frozen yogurt shop.)

Well, that seemed to do the trick, because he was decently behaved for the rest of the walk.  Spencer was pretty good the whole time, although he had a very bad habit of walking right in front of the stroller and then getting offended when I ran into him.  Cole was good until about the last half mile when he kept trying to climb out and walk.  (Fortunately, I convinced him to stay in the stroller.  I just wanted to finish!)  And Tess?  Tess was AWESOME the entire time!  If I ever have to take another kid on a 5k, it's gonna be her.

We finished the race after exactly one hour - not so bad considering all I had against me. (Things 1 through 4....)  I know it's not great time, but we did pass more people than people passed us, so not so bad.

When we finished the boys were excited to go get the promised after-race snacks.  Boy, were they disappointed when they saw it was only healthy things, like orange slices, apples, and bagels. Again, not sure what they were expecting...

On the whole, the morning went a lot better than expected, mainly because I had anticipated the worst.  So I was pretty pleased with the whole thing, even if Spencer and Josh adamantly refused to walk down to campus to join in on the Spring Fest activities. (Which meant no Bug Bowl this year.  Sad.)

As we walked back to the car I asked them if they had had fun. 

"Oh, yes!" they all chorused.

"Do you want to do it again next year?"

A resounding "NO" all around.