Pear Blossom

On Sat. April 10, 2010 me, my four sisters, and one brother-in-law ran the Pear Blossom 5k in Medford, OR. It was such fun!

My sister Kelly and I were able to get to the start area (I say area because there is no line big enough for 1100 people) together. We arrived in time to hear the announcer telling everyone that the faster runners should move towards the front, so I started moving up. I did not consider myself to be an extremely fast runner, but I knew a lot of the people were going to be walking and I didn't want to get stuck behind them! Kelly started moving up with me, but then she thought I was going all the way to the front so she stopped. Once I realized she wasn't with me anymore, I stopped too, so I didn't move up as fast as I would have liked. And it did slow me down for a little while when we first got started and I had to wait until I had space to run around slower people, but after about 8 blocks we all got a little more spread out and it was just a matter of running.

It was great to be in a big race like that where there are so many people cheering. And everyone keeps everyone going and helps each other out! It was also fun at the turn-around where I could see all of my family who was racing.

My goal was to do the 5k in 28 min, and I finished in......... 27:29! (pay no attention to the timer behind me in the picture. I crossed the start line 30 sec. after the gun so it's off.)Go me! So out of the 1118 runners I finished 174th overall. I got up the next morning and felt fine. It's nice that all my training is paying off. 6 mo. ago I couldn't run 400 yards without practically dying so this is practically a miracle. Next year my goal is to finish in the top 100 racers.

On another note, on Monday, Little John woke up with some poison oak on his arms, face and belly. So I gave him some medicine and sent him to school. I intended to take the calamine to school and leave it there for him since I knew he was going to continue to itch during the day. Well, the school called at 8:30. John was in the office feeling pretty miserable, so I loaded up the kids (still in their pj's) and took the med. to school. Well, when I got there, poor Little John looked MUCH worse.His eyes looked like they were about to swell shut.I ended up taking him to the doctor that morning who gave him a prescription. It was NOT for prednisone, which is what I expected. It was for something else called Decatron. I gave John his dose and within a couple of hours his rash was practically non-existent! Now that is a miracle drug! And he stopped itching. I gave him his second dose this morning and he bounded out the door to school felling great. I will definitely use that again for poison oak!