Sunday, January 24, 2016

Cougar Run '15

I think the Cougar Run is going to become a Nelson family tradition for as many as can make it. 2015 makes it the second year in a row, and I would love to do it again this year. (Sorry to the Petersens and Grandma and Poppa who have not been in Utah for either of them - road trip this coming October, maybe?)

This year, I wanted to make sure Norah was ready for her race, so we "practiced" for a couple weeks beforehand, just making sure she knew she would have to run a whole 200 meters and that they would fire a gun for the start. She was so excited and told everybody that she was going to do the Cougar Run. Cutest thing ever.

I was actually pretty excited for my race, too. I wasn't pregnant this year, and I had been running pretty regularly. I felt like I was in pretty good shape, at least for me. I really wanted to get my best 5K time.

We came from Bountiful the morning of the race and thought leaving an hour and a half early would give us plenty of time to get there early on a Saturday morning. WRONG. Turns out there was a huge semi fire on the freeway which backed up traffic like crazy, added on to regular construction traffic (because it's Utah and there's always road construction). We ended up getting off the freeway to bypass the worst of the traffic and got to the track with enough time to get Norah into her shirt and number (which the Kidds had picked up for us). I even managed to get a couple pictures. Whew. The Wings were coming from Bountiful and literally got to the line one minute before the gun. Glad they made it!



 At the starting line!


 Norah was so excited for the whole race. I think she was a little surprised by how long it felt, but she smiled and laughed the whole time. I ran along next to her for most of it just to keep her going.

You can barely see her, but she's in front of the guy in the brown shirt, crossing the finish line.

In the chute

 Pretty excited about their ribbons


 We also got to watch Whitley and Hailey run their races. They both won. By a lot (Whitley by 17 seconds and Hailey by 18 seconds). There are some fast kids in this family! (I'm afraid my kids will just inherit my genes, though. Slow, slow, slow.)

After the kids' races was the 5K. It went really well for me, and I ran an even better time than my goal. I even came in 5th in my age group! (Cami and I have a theory about that. Everyone our age is in the baby-growing age group, and this year a lot of them must have been pregnant or had new babies, so not many competed. But hey, I still got 5th!) Rich got 11th overall and 2nd in his age group (moved up to the 30-34 year old crowd this year), and Cami got 3rd in our group. So the Nelson clan was very well represented across all the races!

 Up on the podium

The 5K runners (no, I'm not a Jets fan - Fanzz swag)

The winners (left), and the not winners (right)

 Nate and his girls were nice enough to watch the kids while we raced, and Norah loved every minute with Hailey, Whitley, and Madison. Jack even stayed pretty content in his stroller (until it was time to eat).

The whole group

Our family

I'm already looking forward to 2016's race!

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