This morning Alex and I ran the DJs for PJs 5K. Well… I ran it, she went along for the ride.

I picked up my packet the day before at a local Kohl’s store. Part of the event was a pajama drive for kids, so I had purchased a pair of baby pajamas at Target earlier in the week. I felt a little silly carrying a pair of pajamas into Kohl’s to donate. I guess I could have just bought a pair there!

Race participants could pick between a gray or a blue shirt. My shirt is a size S and it is huge. It will either become a sleep shirt or disappear completely.

 

The packet also came with about a billion pieces of paper for various businesses, some of which I actually found interesting. There were some for free drinks and free desserts. (Okay, odds are I will never redeem those, because I don’t need a yard size drink and the desserts are at places I probably wouldn’t take my daughter for dinner and I don’t know what a date night is anymore.)

Also, there were a couple of things for free workouts: a boot camp workout and a couple classes at a yoga studio. The yoga studio is nowhere near my house… but they have TRX classes. If I can fit in a couple free TRX classes, I’d love to try it! Those may be worth redeeming.

We also got some other random stuff, including a water bottle that came with a warning that you should never put it in the dishwasher as it may melt. WHAT?! And a pen on a leash… in case your pen wanders away. And one of those RedStar sunglasses cards. Anyone ever redeemed one of those?

It was about 75 degrees at race time, but it definitely felt warmer than that! My body needs to do the first heat adaptation! (The second will come when we are over 100 all the time! Vegas Baby!)

 

Runners/walkers were encouraged to wear their PJs for the race. The irony, I wore an old race tech-shirt to bed with a pair of gym shorts. I got up in the morning, changed out of those into a different tech shirt and running shorts! The people who actually wore PJs looked too hot!

The course was uphill for the first half. I’ve run this path soooooo many times. I don’t even know how many times, yet today it felt harder than it ever has in the past. Maybe because I was pushing about 50 pounds uphill! (I think the stroller weighs about 30 lbs and my little peanut is around 21 lbs.)

I like the pace chart from my Garmin, how you can see where it dips on some inclines. Oh, and where my passenger demanded WATER! and when she was ALL DONE! I’m not so competitive that I’m going to ignore that, it was warm!

I had a lot of cheers on the course, lots of people yelling out “Go Mommy Runner!” and “Run Mom!” At the turnaround the volunteers there were yelling, “First stroller runner! Woo hoo!” It was kind of funny, I have never gotten that much attention for pushing a stroller in a race. At the finish line there was a gal just a little ahead of me and some guy started yelling, “Go mom runner, push it in. Pass that girl!” So I did… 🙂

We got a medal when we crossed the finish line. Then the organizers said, “Give them another one, for the baby.” So Alex has her own medal, her very first one. She likes pointing out the “baby” on it. (She points out babies everywhere.)

Jamba Juice was one of the sponsors and they had little smoothies at the finish for everyone. I went to pick one up and they asked if I wanted one for my cute baby. I had assumed I would just share some with her, but they promised there was enough for her to have her own. She loved it.

What she didn’t love was all the people who wanted to talk to her. And when the race photographers/videographers gathered right in front of me and asked if they could take our picture and get video of us, she started to cry. She has a little bit of trouble with straw cups sometimes, she tries to tip them up like she was drinking from a sippy cup. And well… that gets messy. So when you are already kind of upset and then end up with cold smoothie all down the front of your chest, you might be sad and start crying harder, saying, “Go go go. Home.” So we left before the awards ceremony could start, thus I have no idea if I placed in my AG or if we won any of the raffle prizes. But we did ruin a shirt!

It was a fun little event, I think the crowd was a little smaller because there was the big Mustang 50th Anniversary Half/5K going on, but that’s a one time thing and if they do this one again next year I’d participate. It’s a good cause and they did a nice job with the organization. And there’s something about having down a race in the morning that makes the day feel so much more interesting than if we’d just done the menu planning, grocery shopping, stuff around home like usual.