Medal Monday: It’s a thing and it’s fun.

As we get older we often don’t participate in competitions or performances where we get to feel proud of an accomplishment. I think that maybe that is why I really enjoy running races. It’s a great way to not only see how all your hard work pays off but also to be able to get a small momento where you can say I did this and it was fun. I think it’s really neat how people have made “Medal Monday” a thing on Instagram. I love reading about how other runners felt about their races. Sometimes things go really well and they get a personal record (PR) and that so much fun to read. Other times injuries, weather and what not can cause a race to not go as planned  and those are equally good to read for learning to understand and adapt to difference conditions and circumstances. There will be races that don’t go well and that’s ok.  I’ve had races that fall in to both categories this year and both have been great learning experiences.

My half-marathon in June was a huge accomplishment for myself that I first ran that far as the furthest I had run in training was ten miles. But it was also very telling of how injury and weather can really throw a curve ball in a race’s outcome. The race began early on the Katy Trail outside of St. Charles, MO. In the early part of the morning the heat was tolerable and bearable in the shade of the trees on the trail. However, after the first six miles we turned off the Katy Trail onto the Hamburg Trail and it the sun and unbearable heat as the temperatures rose into the high 80s. The last 6.2 miles were a true test as I was hot, tired and feeling the effects of fewer days of training due to my recent calf injury. The heat and my loss of fitness resulted in a much slower time than I originally anticipated and I think that was a bit difficult to deal with at the time. Looking back I can see now that my time was just  a number and I ran the best race I could at that moment.

My most recent race that I ran with my husband was also a great learning experience but for different reasons. This time the race went in our favor and it doesn’t hurt that it was an automatic PR as we had never raced a 10k before. We had sun, no wind, fairly cool temperatures ( 65 degrees to start evening out to around 70-75 degrees by the end) and mostly flat course. In other words, the odds were in our favor. We were both a bit nervous as we had completed almost all our training with the jogging strollers each of us pushing a 30 pound pre-schooler. We knew it would be easier to run without the strollers but it was hard to gauge exactly what pace that would ultimately be. We were pleasantly surprised that we were able to maintain a fairly steady pace of 8:40/mi for the first five miles and then pick it up a bit on the last mile. Unfortunately, the race we ran, started the 10k and the 5k at the same time so that when we were finishing the 10k the 5k still had participants finishing and it created a bit of a clog up on the trail to the finish line. Despite this we finished in 53:10 and 53:12, respectively. We realized after the race that although, we knew we had run a good race that we might  have been able to pick the pace up a bit sooner than we did. We have our next 10k in two weeks and we are hoping to be able to beat our previous time as we know now that we can go out a bit faster in order to bring our overall time down. Though, I have to say what I enjoyed most about this race and Medal Monday was that I got to do it with my husband. It’s a true joy to be able to share my love of running with him. So on that note here are a few words from him:


     “Couch to 10k in 40 Days
It’s interesting sometimes, the crazy ideas that one gets planted in their head. This idea, some might say it was a planted like a seed, hit me like a bullet out of a gun. Randomly, seemingly out of the blue, I received a not so subtle hint that my wife was interested in signing up for a 10k race in St. Charles, MO on September 30th of this year. So, that is where a moment of what could only be described as pure insanity, I signed us both up! Somehere between not running for almost a year, eating too many Cheetos, and drinking way too much beer. My brain decided it was a brilliant idea to get my Cheeto dusted self-up and attempt to run a 10k in just 40 days. I can honestly say without the knowledge and sometimes loving shove of my wife this would have been an impossible task. The training was intense and felt a lot like long distance self-induced torture. At the end of it all, the hard work and dedication (mostly my wife, Sarah, kicking me off the couch) we successfully finished our first 10k together in 53 minutes  and we will be running another 10k race on the 21st of this month. We have opened a new chapter in our book and it’s going to be exciting, tune in for more to come ;).

Alexander Nelson
Loving Husband”

Thanks for reading and we hope you stay tuned for more on our racing adventures.