The Three E's First 5K

I thought it was pretty "romantical" when Eric emailed me from work with an attachment to the Greenville Zoo's annual 5k, "Zoom Through the Zoo." His memo saying, "Maybe it would be fun to run this together as a family?" Melt my heart! Yes, PLEASE!! This and food are a love language to me.

I had ran this race a couple years ago. Eric is a runner, too, for those who were not aware. He has been caught up in work, school, and dad life lately and has not ran with me since just before I got pregnant. But he loves it, too. He ran in high school along with wrestling and football. We are an athletic little family! If you are one of the fortunate souls who knows Ellie well and gets to play with her often, then you know that she is never slowing down. Always active. She even eats her meals while playing. She cannot stand to be still more than a few moments in the high chair. She crawls, climbs, walks with her toys, scales walls until she basically passes out with exhaustion. So, this family loves physical activity. Of course we would run together. I have been just waiting for this day to come! We can't do it together as often as I can run races alone due to our schedule, however, it sure was a treat to finally get started. I cannot wait for more 3E races!

I wasted no time registering our family for the race. I gave us a team name which of course was the one given to us by friends..."The Three E's." I then wasted not another moment in searching for Ellie the PERFECT race attire. Home girl needed a bib number. So. Etsy. Of course.

Race day came, and we headed out early to run with the monkeys! My intentions/goals for this race were to NOT focus on time, yet, to simply run comfortably with the stroller, pushing Ellie, with Eric alongside me. We started at the back as this is proper when not worried about your time and carting a stroller.

Yet, we were still quite fast considering the extra weight and mass of that stroller and our third teammate, Miss Ellie. One of my strong suits in running is actually dominating the hills. I HATE hills SO much that I actually beast them. I want to get past them so badly, that I just do it. I just push push push so I can get it behind me. Well, yankee boy is still not properly acclimated muscularly to the Greenville hills. So, I did not realize until long gone, that at the first big hill, Ellie and I had left Eric in the dust. If I stopped though, momentum and determination would be hard to rebuild as well as I would have to fight through the same crowd I had just worked hard to get away from (strollers and running crowds are rough....I will never start at the very back with the stroller again. We will start in the middle.) I knew he would want us to keep pushing forward. So that we did. It was still super cool. Because we finished ahead of Eric, Eric was able to experience what I experience every race...his family cheering him on to the end!! I hope he felt as empowered as I always do at the end! They always make me cry!

After the race, we cooled off on the playground munching bananas, chugging water, and pushing Ellie in the swing. We changed clothes in the car because swampy sweaty running shorts and undies...let's just be real here folks, is NA-STAY! And we had other places to go. Like artisphere! So we got cleaned up and freshened up and went and bought two beautiful pieces of art we have had our eyes on since last year.

That evening, Eric and I left Ellie in the care of Mimi and G-Daddy, showered up, and went to grab a to go pizza from Sidewall in TR and listened to the tunes at "Party in the Park." Eric picked me up and threw me over his shoulder in front of everyone and carried me to the dance floor to slow dance with me. I got so shy, my foot popped, and I buried my head in his shoulder. His "romanticalness" makes me shy. (Hence why I couldn't stop twirling at the altar on our wedding day!) It was a truly wonderful family day!!

I cannot wait for more race days as a family tribe! I am thankful that whether we race together or my babies cheer me on, we do it together! It feels incredibly bonding to run together as one family, though. That was my favorite! I truly am a blessed little lady!