Mother's Day 10K in Prospect Park

I didn't sleep well last night because of some annoying post-nasal drip crap going on in my head.  I reluctantly got up at 6:30 this morning.  I dressed 3 out of the 4 kids while Pete got coffee and bagels for the road.  It started raining at 7am so I grabbed my rain vest.

We took the Belt Parkway to Ocean Parkway and then made our way north to Prospect Park.  Even on a Sunday morning, there's traffic and poorly timed traffic lights.  I wanted to get there by 8:35 because the 10k start time was 8:50.  We made it to the park entrance at Ocean Avenue & Lincoln Avenue at exactly 8:30.  Pete dropped me off while he went looking for a parking space.  I ran over to the race staging area.   I saw a big finish line, but no start.  Hmmm...  It must be around a corner somewhere.  I asked someone where packet pickup was.  He led me to a suspiciously empty table with just one woman working behind it.  I told her I was picking up my 10k number.  Guess what!  They changed the start times.  I missed it.  Didn't I get the email?  Uh...no...that's why I'm standing here.  Of course, this turn of events was not the least bit surprising to me.  It is well documented that if there is a way to screw up race details of any kind, I'm your woman!  They apologized and gave me not one, but two very large race shirts (Size smalls are always the first to go).  I also can get a free entry into one of their fall races.  Okay, I'll take that.  I called Pete who still had not found a parking space.  He picked me up where he left me off.

Now what?  Well, we're in Brooklyn.  I decided I was going to run the perimeter of the park.  I've never done that before.  It should be around six miles.  Pete took off with the kids and I started my run.  After ten minutes, I found out long sleeves was not such a good idea.  I was uncomfortable, but it was manageable.  I ran on the sidewalks right outside the gates of the park.  I'm not a big fan of sidewalks.  I could hear my bones groaning, "Thud!  Thud!  Thud!" as I plodded along.  I realized after 23 minutes that my run was going to be closer to four miles than six.  Oh well.

I met up with Pete and the kids again.  My son was so psyched to be in Brooklyn for some reason.  He was doubly psyched because when I packed him into the car this morning while he was half asleep, I forgot to also throw his shoes in there.  He thought being Shoeless Joe in NYC was just about the coolest thing in the world.  We grabbed my grande decaf skinny mocha at the Park Slope Starbucks.  Everything turned out okay, after all.

Hope it was a happy Mother's Day for everyone else!

"Oops.  Did I forget something...?"