Baltimore Ten Miler recap

Alternate title: I wish I had tried harder to find the body glide.

This was my first real race that I trained for as a #motherrunner, 8.5 months postpartum. I think I've run this race 4 or 5 times now. My runner friend was all like, shoot for "1 hour 20 minutes!" That's my ten mile PR from way back when. Then he became a new dad and was all like "shoot for 1:40!". And I was all like, hey, try having a human cut out of your abdomen and get back to me.

In reality, it's hard to train with a kid, and two jobs - teaching, and I've recently been informed that blogging counts as a job. If screwing around on Facebook counts as a job, mark me down as triple employed.

One of my main problems is that my kid eats all my food, and drinks all my water.

I love it when races fall the day after National Doughnut Day. #carbloading #cleanliving #goodparenting

Right, because I don't need to hydrate or anything. #greedy

I think my friends thought I was exaggerating, but we just went to dinner and they witnessed this hungry hippo's appetite first hand. He ate an entire cooler full of food I brought him, crab dip, and then was screaming for more of my chicken sandwich. Crawling takes a lot of fuel!

As much of a pain in the ass this child is, requiring sustenance and care and all, he did help me out a bit. He knew I would be busy coordinating and instagramming the perfect race outfit, so he read himself a bedtime story.



And helped out with some household chores.

Nobody loves doing laundry. Suck it up, kid.

The night before the race, my friend Ashley (we met through blogging, the best way) came up from Virginia to spend the night. We fired up the grill, and is there anything more adorable than a tiny burger for a baby?

No, there is not.

To prepare for the race, we took creepy selfies from odd angles and sent them to Kara.

Ashley clearly read that internet list of what to do when visiting the almighty MOTHER. She watched my kid, did our dishes during bathtime, and brought these. 

She is officially welcome in my home any time.

I hadn't run double digits since the Frozen Heart Trail race in February 2014 (and really a lot of that was walking through frozen wasteland), so while Ashley was all like "it's only ten miles", I was more like "I HAVE TO RUN TEN MILES". 

Kara showed up around 6 on race morning, to drive us to the race in style. It was her birthday and she lives two hours away. That girl knows how to party. Team "I used to be faster" was now assembled (minus Ashley, she's still fast).

TMI #motherrunner warning. In addition to the problem of running a ten mile race being crazy, I had the worst clogged duct ever. I get them all the time but early last week I got the largest, most painful one yet. It was BAD. I tried to get it out all week and was kind of freaking out about running like that. 

But, a miracle happened, and it turns out pumping in a goldfish filled minivan on the way to the race was the key. 

Race bib, nursing bib, pump, Garmin, CHECK. 

I've written a lot of words and now I don't even know what to say about the actual race. It started at 7:30, we parked at 7:26, hopped in line, and ran. Baltimore in June. Hot, humid, and hilly. Everything you would expect. I wanted to keel over the majority of the time. It felt like a sprint, but our pace didn't back that up.

If you are able to take a picture, you're not trying hard enough. Photo credit: me.

Somehow, we made it to the finish line in 1:36, and Instagrammed it, as proof, of course.

Making sure to highlight the skinniest angles.

The best part of the day, other than the cold, fresh watermelon at the finish, was seeing my boys waiting for me.

Is there anything sexier a man can wear than a baby?

Love of my life.

I don't know if it was the humidity or what, but things took a turn after that. Thankfully Dalton took a two hour nap, which allowed me to lay in the fetal position moaning (Eric was at our kickball playoff game, I obviously had to drop out). I enjoyed a delicious post race meal many hours later.

Nope, not pregnant, trust me on that one. 

Dalton is Mr. Independent these days and isn't interested in me at all. I'm always up in his grill trying to get some attention, and he just wants to crawl and cruise from toy to toy with no parental interaction. That did work out for me while I didn't feel well, and I just laid back and watched him play, with intermittent sprints when he tried to ingest something lethal.

Between the clogged duct disaster and being out of commission the whole rest of the day, I'm not sure I'll be signing up for any more races this summer. I definitely had fun though, and the jacket is sweet.

Porch blogging selfie #suckitin

What's the weirdest problem you've ever dealt with at a race?