I know what you’re thinking. After my butt issue just a few days ago, why in the world did I run?! I’ll tell you, but first let’s talk about the two celebrations on Saturday.

This past weekend, one of our neighbors had a birthday party for their one year old girl, Seneca. Avery and Seneca are exactly 6 months apart, and I expect they’ll become good friends as they grow up together. I never got any pictures of the two together, or the birthday girl at all, but Avery had a great time with Mommy in the bounce house at the party.

Two beauties smiling bright! Avery was a little shy at first, but she warmed up quickly and even played with her peers. From the looks of it, she’s really good at sharing with one of the neighborhood boys, Connor.

“Sharing”, it’s a loosely defined term, right? But “Cuddles”, now that’s fairly straight-forward, and she’s happy to give them when Mommy or Daddy (and sometimes strangers, yikes!) asks.

We had a great time at the party and made it back home for a family walk and then nap time before heading back out again. We were meeting Kelley’s family as well as my mom and her boyfriend at a restaurant for a belated Mother’s Day celebration and it was great to see everyone.

When we meet up with family, Avery just makes her rounds being held and we get a little “freedom” for half an hour as others get their cute kid fix. It’s a win-win for everyone! We all had a good time talking with each other and Avery was very well-behaved……almost too well.

Before we knew it, we were on our way back home to get Avery to bed and wind down the night with 3 Walking Dead Season 5 episodes. Thank you, internet!

The half-marathon I talked so much about that was cancelled from severe weather last weekend (so I rowed 13.1 instead), was rescheduled for yesterday, the 17th. The venue changed twice from the original location and we had already checked out of even considering trying to go after my ER visit.

“Butt” (ha ha, get it?), I found myself having trouble sleeping and woke up earlier than usual on Sunday morning. This usually means I make my grocery shopping rounds early and be done with it, but this time, I had another perfect idea instead. Go to the race and then to the store!

True, I was specifically told not to run, and I’m still hurting a little down there, but when I pay for something it gets under my skin when I just give it up. That something would be the nice technical shirts and finisher’s medal you get, as well as a surprise Mother’s Day gift the event organizer mentioned. So I told Kelley, as she went to nurse Avery back asleep, I was leaving for the store and would be back soon.

I didn’t officially decide to drive to the race until I got in my car, then I figured why not, and thought it would be cool to bring back the Mother’s Day surprise gift for Kelley. Husband bonus points for me! I arrived right after the race started, so I gave the coordinators my spiel and they happily gave me a shirt for both my wife and I and agreed to give a Mother’s Day gift if I finished the race.

So I raced. But not the half-marathon, just the 5k, and I walked most of it, which was very muddy from the never-ending rain.

The nice thing about walking is you get to see more and take in the nice scenery. For example this really long worm along with dozens of his friends were on the entire course.

Yeah, so it wasn’t that great of scenery. I ended up running the last mile, but I was sorry for that later….stupid butt. At least it looked like I saw some action with a little mud splashed up my leg.

I didn’t wait around for my first place trophy (joke), just took a banana, which happened to be attached to several bananas…

…got my finisher’s medal….

…and Kelley’s Mother’s Day gift.

A freakin Fuel Belt. They are nice, but I was thinking something more motherly. But what could I expect from a runners club? I actually think it will be great when out all day with Avery since it has a hydration pack and some storage.

Overall great weekend and I’m happy to say my ass is hurting less! I go in for check-up (no jokes) on Tuesday, so hopefully I have more good news to report then!

Do you feel like you have to get your money’s worth at events you sign up for?

Ever walk a race before? That was a first for me and it felt weird, but not that bad.