For the third year in a row we had a small group representing 2 Fat Nerds in the Boston Athletic Association’s 5k the weekend before Marathon Monday. This year, we had 8 runners (Mom, Dad, Dave, Brooks, Gracie, Mark, Emily, and myself), and it was a lot of fun!

The B.A.A. 5k is the first race of the B.A.A. Distance Medley, which includes the 10k in June and the Half Marathon in October. 2 Fat Nerds members Gracie, my father, and myself will be training and running this year’s Distance Medley and we registered several months ago, so we were excited that the 5k was finally here!

There were more runners in Boston than ever this year, and it was great to see everyone outside ready to run before 8am on a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was bright and smiles were everywhere. There were so many people at the start, the elite finishers were crossing just a couple minutes after everyone cleared the start!

Image

                                            Thanks for the awesome sign, Mike and Suz!

Some notable moments: Mom set a PR! She worked really hard all winter long to maintain her distance, even working out EVERY SINGLE DAY in the month of March. Her hard work definitely paid off, and she finished this race faster than ever before. I started out running with her, and during the first half mile she was out of reach. Way to go!

Brooks set out on fresh legs without logging much training time and ran a 5k faster than I will probably ever be able to do! I think she’s caught the running bug, so we’ll have to pay attention to her progress!

This was the first year that I both ran the 5k and trained for it. Despite my best intentions, both years prior, I ended up going out to run without preparing, and always being disappointed in myself. This year, I maintained my distance throughout the tough winter, and was ready to run the race. Two weeks ago, I ran my fastest 3 miles (38 minutes), and I was really excited to show off my hard work. I’m pretty sure there is a force out there trying to make it as difficult as possible for me to run, because a week and a half before the race I was struck with a miserable 8-day stomach bug, that left me 7 pounds lighter, weaker, and just plain old ill. The morning of the race, this past Saturday, I woke up very nervous to run, but I got out there, and I did it! I was the happiest I’ve ever been during an organized race, and had a pretty good time, but I could definitely feel the effects of being sick for a full week. My legs ached, my stomach was uneasy, and although my time suffered a little bit, overall, this was a successful start to my Distance Medley.