Tuesday, July 12, 2011

JWS Family Reunion: Day Two, Part One - The 5K

On the 2nd day of our reunion, we all woke up early for the family 5K that was organized by Tyler and Janna. And let me tell you...no expense was spared! They had water stops, a start and finish line, trophies, medals, raffle prizes, and a sweet post-race breakfast!

They started us out with a 100 Meter Dash for all the little kids. It was pretty funny to watch. The older kids had a pretty good handle on things and were out and back in no time! But several of the younger kids got distracted half way through and started to play in the grass, or simply wandered off once they'd forgotten what they were supposed to be doing. Brooklyn got to the turn around point and told the adults that were standing there that she was afraid if she kept running her legs might fall off! This, of course, resulted in Brooklyn crossing the finish line wrapped in the arms of Uncle Phil as he sprinted through to the sound of her yelling, "FASTER! FASTER!"

Once the children had all received their shiny new canning-top-medals, we lined up for the 5K. Many of the older children participated in both races, and one of them even took third place overall in the 5K!

The course went out and back so I was able to see a lot of the runners as they passed me on their way to the finish line :) It was actually kind of neat because I knew who won first, second, and third place long before I finished the race. I even got to see Janna, our incredible event organizer, run pass me in record time, pulling a spectacular race face for the cameras!

Jennie was nice enough to run the whole thing with me despite my dramatic attempts to suck oxygen out of Utah's thin air. I finished in exactly 33 minutes and was pretty pleased that I could still pull that time with my burning lungs! I guess all my time in Chicago has made me soft after all!

One of my favorite parts of the 5K was that almost EVERYONE participated! They didn't care if they'd never run before or not, they just got out and did it. There were runners, walkers, skippers, strollers, and shoulder rides, and they all crossed the finish line to loud shouts and cheers from the rest of the family!

Coming in first place was my crippled husband at 20 minutes and 15 seconds! Not too far behind him was cousin Shawna, and then little Mason Smith took third. Not gonna lie, it was pretty crazy seeing him fly pass me at the midway point :)

All the winners were awarded super cool trophies and medals (complements of DI) and then we finished off the morning with raffle prizes (I won a sweet water bottle) and a pancake breakfast! It was such an awesome morning and a fantastic thing to do as a family, as well as one of my favorite parts of the whole reunion. Thanks Janna and Tyler for all your hard work!

3 comments:

Tau said...

That is a cool idea. What a creative family.

Erin Uda said...

We're going to have to 'borrow' this one for the Uda reunion next year!

Sarah said...

What a great idea. I want to be adopted into the Hanks family too.