Wife Mother Runner #oniantic Archives

Running Adventures With My Son

April 11, 2019

In March my son and I participated in the Hartford Marathon Foundation Lucky Challenge. We ran four 5K races in four different towns in the state; and I feel like we ran through four seasons as well!

My son enjoys running with me and this year we had fun with our running adventures as we traveled all over the state of Connecticut. We even had a separate adventure getting to the O’Hartford race! More on that later…

O’Shenanigans 5K in Southington

The first race of the challenge series was on a beautiful morning in Southington. The temps were in the 40’s and the skies were blue. We trained for the races during the week and the temperatures were quite bitter, but it was pleasant running weather that morning.

We had trouble finding a parking spot, so I lost some time to pick up our bib because we had to turn around several times to find a spot. When we finally found one, we had to jog/sprint to the bib pick up area prior to the start. This become a theme for us throughout the Lucky Challenge.

I had to pace my son because at one point my son was starting to speed ahead; but I know his running style, so I encouraged him to keep some gas in his tank. I was right, because he was losing speed towards the last half mile of the race.

When we approached the last street heading to the finish line I knew he was going to take off. He likes to race me to the finish line. So I told him to go for it. He shot off like a rocket and sped into the finish.

We met up with my friends Anne, Kat, and Kimberly at the finish and enjoyed the post race celebration with pizza from Sauced and beer from Kinsmen Brewing. We had a good time at the race headed home to enjoy the nice afternoon.

O’Putnam 5K in Putnam, CT

The following day my son and I took the 90 minute drive up to Putnam, CT. The race start was pushed to an hour later due to the weather. Despite the beautiful day on Saturday, Sunday was a completely different day! The weather was in the low 30’s with a cold drizzle. Earlier in the morning it snowed, that is the reason why the Hartford Marathon Foundation changed the start time ahead of time to allow for public works to clear the roads.

When we arrived we had about 15 minutes to spare prior to the race start. We picked up our bibs, I ran up to Main Street to pick up our buffs and then had a few minutes to use the restroom prior to the start.

When we went to the start line, Kevin spotted Anne and Kat. We chose to run with Anne for this race and use the same 30/30 intervals as her. She was preparing for the New York City Half Marathon the following weekend, and this course is hilly. We stayed with Anne for the entire race and it felt like the time went by so fast!

After the race, we all huddled under a tent to stay out of the cold rain while we enjoyed a corn beef sandwich on a pretzel roll. My son said this is the favorite part of this race! He remembered it from when we ran the race four years ago with my entire family.

After we ate we ran back to the car to strip off our wet outter layers and put on warm socks and sweatshirts for the long ride home. We blasted the heat and tried to thaw out as fast as we could! Despite the cold, we really had a great time!

O’Niantic 5K in Niantic, CT

The following weekend, the last two races of the Lucky Challenge Series took place. On Saturday morning we had to arrive in Niantic by 9:30 for their 5K. It was another nice clear sunny day for the race and the temperature was also perfect for a race.

We arrived with time to get our bib and walk, not run, to the start line. I didn’t see anyone we knew at this race start so we ran by oursleves. We were keeping a great pace for this race. It runs along the neighborhoods not far from the shoreline and past the National Guard barrocks. There is a section of the course where we can see the first place finishers returning back to the finish line. That can sometimes be disheartening; but we were enjoying the race and weren’t in a hurry to break any records.

As we were in the last mile of the race Kevin was having a stitch in his side. I tried to encourage him to push ahead and do some breathing exercises to get rid of it; but he was slowing down and wanted to continue walking. I didn’t push him because I could see he was very uncomfortable. We were on track to getting our best time for these 5K races; but I didn’t want him to suffer. As we got closer to the finish line he was still mostly walking. Then as we had about 100 feet left, he took off again and smoked me at the finish.

I remembered in the past that this race served some amazing chowder for the post race party. I wanted to get some this year so we took the walk to the post race food tents. Sadly, they didn’t have the chowder; but they did have amazing chili so I picked up one for me and one for my son and we walked back to our car.

A Detour Down Memory Lane

On the way home, we took a detour. I had been wanting to see my grandparent’s old house in Guilford for a long time, so I asked Kevin if he wanted to go check it out. It was a lot of fun to drive to the church my dad used to go to, and then to drive on the roads that we used to travel on every weekend when visiting my grandparents. I told him several stories of what we did on the weekends there. It was so much fun telling him the stories of my childhood and visits to their house.

I had such a wonderful time with him that morning. By the time we finished our race and our little side trip, we got home around 1:30 after Adrienne got home from her softball practice.

O’Hartford 5K in Hartford CT

The last race of the challenge was the race in Hartford. Since I ran this race four years ago, I assumed that it was going to start at the same location. It was such a busy weekend, I didn’t take the time to research into the race start, parking or anything related to this race.

When we drove into Hartford, Bushnell Park was empty and I didn’t see any Hartford Marathon Foundation tents anywhere. We parked at a lot and started to walk towards the Bushnell Theater because I saw several other people walking there. Then I noticed that these people were not dressed like runners.

I had a moment of panic so we ran back to the car and I pulled up the race information on my phone and had to re-route us to the correct area. That is where the adventure begins.

The roads were closed because the race was about to start, so the police directed us to the Convention Center parking area. We quickly parked there and had to run almost a mile to the race area. We didn’t really know where it was; but kept running towards the noise of the race announcer, and asked police when we saw them.

As we approached the race area they were already playing the National Athem! So we rushed over to the registration tent, got our bibs and were one of the last people to cross the start line. I think our legs were nice and warmed up from the run across town because we had a decent finish time for this race! I haven’t checked the official results yet; but I think we set a PR for ourselves our of the four races!

I Can’t Wait For Next Year!

After all the adventures and quality time together driving to and from the races, we are now proud owners of the Lucky Challenge medal. I think we may do this again next year. He really enjoys running with me and I love having this experience with him.

HMF O’Niantic 5K

April 2, 2015

The second race in the Hartford Marathon Foundation Trinity Series was the O’Niantic 5K. While the O’Putnam race was a chilly day, the O’Niantic race was a Snowy day! We had a late winter/first day of Spring snow storm hit Friday afternoon and continued through the night and into most of the morning. In fact, the snow stopped just as the race finished and then the sun came out. Go figure. The race started at 10:45. The Hartford Marathon Foundation already made a determination to start the race an hour later due to forecasts of weather earlier in the week. But the forecasts weren’t saying that the snow was going to continue through the night AND into the following morning. It was supposed to stop by the morning.

My family and I piled into the car and drove to Niantic which was about 45 minutes away but took us about an hour. We arrived into town, parked at a church and rushed to put on the rest of our costumes and pin on our bibs. Then we literally had to shuffle/run through town to the start line and had about 1 minute to spare! It was a nice warm up prior to the race; but we got there in the nick of time.

At the race start

As the race started, my kids and husband and I were going to try to run/walk a bit and see how they do. Yea that lasted about three tenths of a mile! They weren’t happy campers. Their feet were wet, the roads were slushy and slippery and it was still snowing! This race was a “challenge” in itself because they kids were just so miserable. Adrienne especially was suffering because her feet were wet, which then made them itchy. I kept trying to give them a pep talk to keep one foot in front of the other; but it was hard. Then we approached the 1.25 mile area where there was an out and back area and the kids were seeing people on their way back towards the finish line. I think that made it hard for them because they saw how much more they had to do. Some of my friends were running that race and they yelled out to me as they were passing us and heading back to the finish. I was a little jealous that they were getting closer to the chili at the end than we were! But we kept pushing on. I vowed that we would never do another 5K like that again with the kids; but I’m sure next year we are all going to want to do the challenge again. Just like all races, you swear you won’t do it again but then you sign up once registration opens!

Every time my daughter would step, her foot would slap the slush and it went splashing into my shoes so I kept trying to tell her to walk ahead of me; but she just kept zigging and zagging to the side of us and splashing. Ugh.. it was cold. My son went through the typical emotions of running a race. He hated the first mile, then he pushed through the second mile with still some complaining, then he got quiet in the last mile and was determined to get it done. Poor Adrienne was whimpering the whole last mile. Then at the finish when she got her medal and heard me tell her how proud I was that she did it despite how hard it was, she gave me a huge smile.

We still had the O’Hartford 5K to do the following day and I was concerned that the kids were going to be miserable. But the forecast was calling for a dry day at least, but it was going to be cold. After the race I told my husband to take the kids back to the car to have their lunch and warm up and I was going to go get my chili and beer with my parents. I went to Smarty’s for the chili and it was so delicious! The best chili I ever had. It was more like a vegetable broth with beans and onions. It was fantastic! I went inside with my parents to get my beer and then used the bathroom and saw Anne and Katherine and got a picture with them before I left.

Two races down and one left to go with the race challenge and even though it was hard, when I got back to the car the kids were smiling and were looking forward to the last race of the series and getting their Pot O’ Gold medal at the end. Despite the race conditions my mom’s finish time was just a minute slower than the O’Putnam race!

Flannel goes with everything - according to my dad!

My dad worked hard to coordinate his “costume” for this races so he matched! #flannelforeveryoccasion

Hartford Marathon Foundation Trinity Series

March 22, 2015

Sharing our entire Pot of Gold medals from the past 3 races

As I write this blog post with a big smile on my face, my kids are outside playing. It’s 7:00 p.m. and it’s still light out. I’m happy that they are still outside playing and not wiped out on the couch from their tremendous accomplishments over the past week. Today was the last 5K race of the Hartford Marathon Foundation Trinity Race Series. This means we all participated in a 5K last Sunday in Putnam, a 5K yesterday in Niantic (IN THE SNOW!) and a 5K today in Hartford! I will post about each race separately but wanted to summarize what took place in the past week. I am so proud of my children and my husband and dad and especially my mom!

We signed up for these races because she wants to do a Disney 5K. She had her knee replace last March and it was a grueling recovery time. I kept telling her that her recovery efforts were her marathon to get better. She wanted to do a 5K with me one day. Well that day finally came last weekend. My kids, husband, mom and dad had never done a 5K race before and they all just completed a three race Challenge!

I hadn’t written about this yet, but my word of the year for my one word resolution is Challenge. I am going to challenge myself this year in all aspects of my life. I recently received a challenge when my co-worker, who is also becoming a good friend, resigned from her job last week. Thankfully she is going to be around for three more weeks; but now I have the challenge of learning as much as I can from her in that short time. She has been a mentor to me since I started working there in October. I thought I knew stuff, but man does she know so so much more!!!! But we will remain friends after she leave and will remain in touch with each other so I am not worried. I am just going to face the challenge like I do with everything else and do my best.

My kids faced their challenges with these races the past two weekends because they both had suffered colds. First my son had one last weekend and my daughter, of course, caught his cold and had it for this weekend’s races. But we all showed up for the races, despite the cold, the drizzle, snow and fierce wind! Each race had its own unique issues; but they were all great (the jury is still out on the O’Niantic race). I laugh because the entire mile 1.5 to the end my daughter whimpered “I can’t do it, I can’t do it.” But then as we crossed the line and she got her medal she had the biggest smile! My husband had meniscus surgery on his knee last September and a stress fracture of that leg so he wasn’t so sure how he would hold up running a race, but he told me he wanted to run the 5K with me. It was fun pulling him along and showing him the Jeff Galloway method. He always commented on how he thought it was different not “running” the entire race. I think if we didn’t use it he’d be in a lot of pain tonight. I may have convinced him that the method works!

What a great way to kick of the Spring racing season! Stay tuned for recaps of the past three races, the O’Putnam 5K, the O’Niantic 5K and the O’Hartford 5K.

Crazy Adrienne and the O’Frosts and O’Potters sharing our bling at the end of the Trinity Series Races in Hartford, CT

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