My first Mother's Day

Several months earlier, in an effort to support a friend who wanted to lose a bit of baby-weight I signed up for a Mother's Day 5km race thinking it would be full of mums showing a bit of solidarity and having something of a fun run together. I persuaded Natalie to join us figuring Erika and Paul could look after the girls while we enjoy a gentle run on a beautiful flat course that would take us along the Marina, through Crissy Fields and back again.....and then the competitive spirit kicked in.

I'd been pushing myself to improve on my Run Wild 5k time which was 27m30ish and completed after a night of no sleep and only 4 months after Leah was born. I'd been pushing it on the treadmill during my lunch hour and was confident that I'd be able to comfortably beat my time. And then I got sick. Oh the joys of early motherhood! Leah has been picking up every cold under the sun and a few weeks ago she developed a temperature and had a miserable miserable few days where all she could do was throw her head back and cry. It was awful. Then as she started to get better she got covered in spots...and then I got it. Fever, shivers, spots and then the cough. I was completely out of action for a week and the cough kept me awake at night for another week so the training went out the window.

Anyway, I did my best and managed a 26min 5k but it definitely wasn't comfortable. I had passed Natalie at my mile 2 and her mile 1 and as a result wasn't expecting her to make it back for a good 15 or 20 minutes after I had finished but clearly the competitive spirit got hold of her and she appeared a mere 8 minutes later. How she managed to increase her speed so dramatically only she knows but I wonder if her warm up routine had something to do with it:
We celebrated in style with a donut (OK OK two donuts for me) then the Linden-Naylors headed home and the Weatherall-Denchs headed off to Sports Basement where Paul was in need of some retail therapy having been the person to watch the sporting event rather than the person participating. Several hundred dollars lighter but me sporting a snazzy new sports watch (thank you lovely) we headed home for a fish and chip picnic and general lazing about at the little park across from our apartment block.

A perfect day.