Another race is done for us this year and that makes 13 races for us total! Saturday we participated in the Susan G. Komen 5k here in Dallas.  Before we even got to race day Beth realized she had thrown her race bib away since Susan G. Komen mails you your race packet. Which is very convenient but not the norm amongst races, so that was a bit confusing. Thankfully it had been a couple weeks since the trash had been taken out and barely any digging through the trash had to take place since it was pretty much on top!

We made great time getting down to the race and were able to park with no problem whatsoever. We walked over to Northpark Center (mall, for you non Dallasites) to look for the Creekview Cheer Squad and Teal’s friend Cynthia from school and the gym. We found the cheer squad but no Cynthia, so we made our way to the name plate table and fastened pictures of Cindy on our backs.  Since we planned on pinning pictures of Cindy to our back we’d brought extra safety pins with us which are not actually something that come in your race packet with the bib.  Those little safety pins were hot commodities and so many people tried to steal them from us. Ha.

Snapped a picture real quick in between taking a potty break and lining up for the start of the race!

It took us twelve minutes to get from where we lined up to the start line….then a few seconds after that we remembered to start our Runkeeper apps.  We started out walking because there were SO many people out there!  Glad we both had decided our goal was going to be to enjoy the race and take it all in otherwise if we were really trying to race it I think we would have been so frustrated.  All of the walkers out there were all over the place – of course in the street but also up on the sidewalks and in the grass.  We were able to get some running in during that first mile but it was saaaaaa-low and full of dodging around or having to stop and walk or being cut off. 🙂

By the time we got to the first mile marker we’d been out on the course for about 14 minutes and at this point we had resolved to just walking the rest of the way, but walking as fast as we could!

During our 2nd mile we noticed a woman on someone’s front porch with a bunch of people surrounding her.  Not sure what happened there if she fell and got trampled or what, but so nice of the people in that house to take care of her!  One of the best parts of the race was that you could just tell a lot of the people out there do not normally get out and exercise like that.  We talked about how neat it was that t his cause encouraged so many people who aren’t regulars to working out to get out there and walk for a cause!  Hope some of them were inspired to keep up the walking!  We also laughed at the little girl we heard on the course tell another person in her group “if you wanna be skinny you gotta run!”

Somewhere past this sign Teal’s friend Cynthia texted her to say she had finished and wanted to know where we were.  We were so surprised she was finished AND she had gotten to run the whole thing.  Apparently, if we do this race next year we need to sign up as “Elite Runners” to be able to actually run it.  We didn’t do that originally because Elite Runners? – do we really fall into that category?  Beth was annoyed she hadn’t signed up to be chip timed, but who knew it wouldn’t end up not mattering anyways?  As we mentioned in our pre-race post, Teal actually did this run about 10 years ago and back then it had less people and the majority of them were runners. Ohh, how times change! 🙂

As we neared the finish line we found Cynthia and the Creekview Cheer Squad!  They had all finished the race and were motivating and inspiring everyone as they passed by and made their way to the finish line.  They were awesome!  We took the opportunity to get some pictures before crossing the finish line!

I’m pretty sure I was suppose to crop that last picture, but it kind of makes me laugh so I didn’t. 🙂

Neither of us had expected to be out there as long as we were so we grabbed some free coffee and walked back to our car.  We probably walked faster to the car than we did the whole race, but we don’t care! We got to get out there and walk in honor of Cindy and #TeamCindy and that’s ALL that matters.  When we run Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio I think the emotions of running in honor of Cindy will be multiplied as we have been raising money for a few months now and have invested our own hearts into her story and her family!  And then, of course, we wouldn’t be Teal and Beth if we weren’t race walking to our car because Teal had to get to work and Beth was headed to a make up weights session at Johnny’s!

And because who doesn’t love a picture of a baby? – 

Post workout at Johnny’s, Beth was off to her nephew’s 5th Birthday Party (costume party)! That’s the youngest nephew trying to get in the spirit of the costume party, but not sold on it!