Last Friday afternoon, Emma and I boarded the Deere bus and headed to Porto Alegre. We arrived at the hotel in the evening, just as Kevin was returning from dinner with his colleagues. He had to go to a training day on Saturday, so Emma and I went to the mall to pick up my race packet. I was pretty excited about the race, but I was probably as equally excited about the fresh blueberries and raspberries I found at the grocery store in the mall! I also found tortillas and stocked up on them!
Sunday morning we took a taxi out to Parque Marinha for the race. Emma was my warmup partner and I had a blast with her. While I was jogging around, she was clapping and saying, "Go, Mommy, Go!!"
My first race of the day was with her. We tied:)
Daddy's Little SweetHeart
One of my biggest fans. . .
Ready to run, ready to cheer
There were over 2,000 runners for the 5K and 10K.
I'm waaaaay in the back.
Whoohoo!! I felt so good after the race!
I even got a medal!!
My biggest fans!
Ahh, gotta love free, post-race massages!
Sunday was a pretty important day for me. My goal for the race was to run a PR (personal record) and I did that, running 26:16!! As much of an accomplishment as that was for me, while I was running, I thought of all the other highlights of the last year. I feel like I've overcome a lot of big hills in the past 12 months. At one point during the race, I just wanted to yell to everyone, "I did it! I made it through the first year of living in this strange country and I'm still alive!" Not only alive, but actively participating in life here!! Actually running the race felt like a huge personal milestone for me. There's another race at the end of May that I'm hoping to run also. . . a 10K!! Although I don't feel totally planted (and I'm not certain I ever will), I'm so thankful that I can at least feel a little more at home here!!
