Wilmington, North Carolina United States 37F / 3C Sunny

Total Time = 1h 46m 25s Overall Rank = 78/517F Age Group = F40-44 Age Group Rank = 6/60

My second grandson was born Saturday morning (the day before the race). We kept my first grandson overnight with us while his parents stayed at the hospital. Darien is a great sleeper and normally sleeps until 8:00am, so my younger daughter was going to stay home with him while my husband and I went to the race (we would need to leave the house at 5:30am). I had packed my race bag and set out my race clothes the night before so I could sleep as late as possible Sunday morning (we had gotten up extra early Saturday morning for the birth, so we were a bit tired). It turned out to be a good thing that I was packed the night before. My grandson woke up at 4:30 not feeling well. He was already on antibiotics for an ear infection. He woke up with a slight fever and a very stuffy nose. So I spent most of the next hour giving him medicine and trying to get him back to sleep. I got him back to sleep at 5:15 and then I quickly dressed and ate. We made it out the door at exactly 5:30.

When I arrived at the race, I had to go pick up my race packet (I chose not to come the day before to get it because I already had to come to Wilmington on Friday for a class for work - I didn't want to make the drive 3 days in a row). I had no trouble getting my packet, but they were out of race shirts in my size. They took my name and size and told me they would mail me one. I then went to get my chip. After I had my race number and chip I found my family (my parents, husband, sister, brother and two nephews had come to see me race - all but my husband lives in Wilmington). I pulled my race number out of my race packet and looked for the safety pins they said were in the bag. There was only one!! I was going to go back to ask for more, but my mother told me she had some in the car. So while I waited for my father to get me some more safety pins, I went and stood in line for the bathroom. By the time I got back, they had the pins and I attached my race number to my shirt. This all took about 30 minutes and I still had 30 minutes left until race time.

My warm-up consisted mostly of just trying not to freeze! It was cold. I had decided to wear shorts, a long sleeve shirt and gloves to race. I had that on with sweat pants and a jacket until the race start. While I stood around waiting for the race to start, I was wondering if my decision to wear shorts had been a good one! I ran a few strides and did some light stretching. When we were 5 minutes away from the race start, I walked over to the start line and took off my sweats and handed them to my husband.