I am running my next race in a month. I will be running in the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day 10K Road Race on 3/17/12. I’ve run parts of the route during marathon training, but I’ve never run the route all at once. Yesterday I decided to run the route right from work. The hospital I work at is located on the course. It was a spectacular morning for a run. The air was crisp and the sun was shining.

This course is quite hilly. I started out on what will actually be closer to the end of the race. The hospital is about half way down the only downhill portion of the race. Although I am trying to increase my speed and shooting for a sub-1 hour 10K by summer I decided to simply run the route without looking at my Garmin until the end. This way I could determine my baseline and where I need to improve.

This run was challenging. I promised myself I would run up each and every hill without walking no matter how slowly I ran. I tackled the hills one by one and stayed true to my promise. My legs were feeling it by the last hill, but I knew the rest was downhill from there.

I had a huge smile on my face as I sped down the last bit of my run. I turned the corner onto the sidewalk of a very busy main road in Holyoke. My car was across the street in the hospital parking lot so I only had about 2/10 of a mile to go. Suddenly I was airborne. I came crashing down on both palms. My knees hit the ground next. My eyes stung as I blinked away the tears. I couldn’t bring myself to look towards the street because I was sure people were watching me and what a sight I must have been.

It seemed like a lot of time went by but it was only seconds that passed before I picked myself up and walked across the street to where my car was parked. My palms were bleeding and I could feel my elbow and knees burning.

Mileage and some bleeding! Makes me feel a little hard core!!

That is the good hand in the picture. The other one had much more blood. The run ended up being a little longer than 6.2 miles as you can see in the picture. I ran 6.71 miles in 1:07:39. Though the time was probably a little less because I obviously didn’t stop the clock midair! I am pretty happy with that time considering the hills. I will continue with speed work over the next few weeks, but I will add in more hill training. I may not make my goal on this next race, but I can feel myself getting close.

Normally I run with my iPhone in my hand when I am using it to listen to music. However, yesterday my saving grace was that I had put it in my SpiBelt otherwise my screen would have been cracked for sure.

In other news we will be having a special fairy visitor tonight. My baby lost his first tooth this morning. I have been preparing myself for this all week since I discovered the loose tooth last Sunday. We were upstairs brushing our teeth and the tooth was just hanging on by a thread which for some reason kind of grossed me out.  I said oh it looks like it’s about to come out. Carlos started swishing that tooth around with his tongue and then out it popped.

It was so exciting that it happened on a day when we were all home as a family. My husband sometimes misses things because he works during the day. I have the tooth safe and sound in a little pouch. The tooth fairy has been notified via email because that’s how she rolls these days. I asked Carlos what he thought she might leave him and he said, “a dollar or two pennies.” Two pennies I can do! Who am I kidding I’ll leave the dollar!!

When I was pregnant everyone with kids told me how quickly time goes when you have children. They were right. When I noticed that Carlos’ tooth was loose last week I got quite emotional about it inside. His baby teeth are pretty much all that is left of “my baby.” He will obviously always be my baby boy, but he is growing so quickly. I should have also taken a photo of him in his high water size 5 jeans. He just turned 5 in December and already I have to shop for size 6s! If only we could make time stand still once in a while.

I’m off for a run on another gorgeous sunny winter day. Enjoy your Sunday!