A Race for July 4th Weekend....

It's going to be fun, yet busy, 4th of July weekend here in the Friesen Household. But, we will definitely plan on celebrating the true meaning of the holiday -- the original signing of our country's Declaration of Independence way back in 1776.

This weekend, the city of Newton, KS (where we live) is having its annual Chisholm Trail Festival. While typically we don't enjoy every aspect of the festival, we did get out and enjoy a few things this morning.

I'll post on one of them now....another at another time.

This morning, Marc and I (and Luke, in the stroller) participated in the local 5 km run/walk....Marc ran. I both walked and ran.

It's forecasted to be a rainy weekend, and the clouds right before the race start proved just that.



It did drizzle just a bit on us before the race started, but fortunately, it stopped when the race started.

Here's Marc having a GOOD TIME! He LOVES participating in races. This is his happy look right after a warm-up run.



So, the race started here....The Newton Medical Center parking lot.



I didn't get a photo of the exact finishing spot, but it's in front of the Kansas Army National Guard Armory....

The race isn't huge. I'm guessing 150-200 people participate.

Here's one view of mine during the race....One thing nice about having a stroller during the race is that one has a place to put her camera :)



Finally, after a muggy and very sweaty 3.1 miles, I approached the finish line -- Marc had LONG SINCE finished, and he was already running back to get the car for us.



When finishing, we enjoyed some snacks (or "nacks" in Luke-Speak). Then, the awards started.

Luke LOVED clapping for all of the people receiving awards.



Marc did end up receiving first place in his age group -- YAY!

So, he went up to get his award, and this is the best photo I could get.



Here's the best I could get of my two guys after Marc received his award.



Of course, Luke then had to wear Marc's award -- But, I managed to get this extremely cute photo of Luke continuing to clap for others....

This is one of my new favorite pics of our child.



Two Highlights from this race....

1) I truly don't enjoy running with the stroller. My sheer enjoyment with the stroller is walking across town -- sometimes close to 30 miles per week. But, this morning, I actually ended up running at least 1/2, if not more, of this race with the stroller. The KICKER -- I only ran 6 seconds SLOWER than a race at the end of May -- a race where I did run the entire time (as opposed to doing some walking like today) with NO stroller. So, my daily walks must be doing something for my fitness level.

2) I had the opportunity to meet a fellow blogger in person. I've gotten to "know" Diana via blogging for awhile now. She's local, and she was kind enough to join us at the end of the race. Diana has some photos of us together. Perhaps she'll put this on her blog? It was fun meeting you in person, Diana.

Now, I'll have to do some traveling to meet some other fellow bloggers....You know who you are!