Texas Reds 5k

Since Matt and I are getting ready for the Crescent City Classic 10K in New Orleans, I thought I would make a little post about the race we did back in the fall. Matt, my mother in law and I ran/walked a 5K in downtown Bryan. It was part of the Texas Reds Steak & Grape Festival. Matt and I have gone every year to the festival to try out the steaks and sample the local Texas wineries. They close down Main street and a few others surrounding and have bands, games, vendors, and all kinds of goodies. We invited Matt's parents and his nieces and nephew to come on up and enjoy the festival this year with us. This past year I was really intent on getting into shape and being healthy, so when I saw that one of my best friends Lori @ Our Little Angel, had ran an entire 5K, I knew that I wanted to try to do it too. Not to mention our good friends Scarlett and Damon are always doing races with their kiddos. So Matt and I started running a month or so before the festival with the hopes of being able to run the entire race. We tried really hard to be disciplined and reach our goals, but the most we could ever run was 2 miles. We were just hoping on race day that we would get the extra adrenaline pump needed that would take us to the end. Matt had a lil more of that pump than I did and finished before me. We ran a good 2 miles together before I finally told him to leave me behind and go for it. I felt like I was reenacting the scene from the Titanic or something. After a couple of "are you sure's?", he finally left me in the dust, and I continued run/walking the rest of the way. We unfortunately left my mother in law behind at the beginning of the race, but little did we know she was right behind us the entire time, what a rock star. My time was 34.55, which is OK. I know that I pushed myself as much as I could at the time.  Matt finished in 31:52 and my rocking MIL finished in 35:06, see I told you she was right behind me. When I crossed the finish line, Matt was waiting for me, cheering me on. It was awesome. We turned back around to wait for Mrs. Pat, and next thing we knew she was calling us from behind, she had already crossed. I have to boast and tell you that she won first place in her age division. I won't tell you what that was, because she would kill me, but I think that is an Excellent accomplishment (and no she was not the only person in her age group!).

(Post race picture. Man, my face is swollen and red from running.)

Here are a few pictures of the streets when we picked up our t shirts and bib numbers. They were getting ready for the festival to start that night.

Matt and I picking up our stuff!

 One of the most important things about the race was that it was to raise money for the local Cancer research center. They asked for you to put names of people you knew who had beaten cancer or had fallen to it, so at one of my Business Women's meetings, I was able to put a few names of people I knew on there. It was neat that they framed it and gave it to the research center. 

Later that night we all went back and had a great time at the festival, I will have to post more pictures from that soon!

What goals are you trying to reach this year? Are you planning on running a race? Let me know some things you hope to achieve this year.