Once a juggler, always a juggler!

Last week we packed up the kids and headed down to Lexington, KY for the International Jugglers Association festival. Brian and I are so rusty, but we have never been to an IJA festival and this one was only 4 hours away. Plus, my sister lives in Lexington, so we were able to drop the kids off with her while we attended workshops and the like. It was really great. It was just a great feeling to be around so many other jugglers, and learn and observe and enjoy ourselves in a like-minded environment. We were able to attend the youth showcase and juniors championship and we were completely blown out of the water by the ability of those kids! Seriously, most of those kids were better than most of the jugglers at the convention. AWESOME.
Photos:

This photo isn't mine, but it's so cool that I wanted to post it anyway. At the end of the festival there was a toss-up in the gym, what a celebration!! I still can't figure out what those white, blobby things are in the front-they look like plastic bags!



A family shot outside of the convention center:



And finally, doing what we do best:

The race that almost never was

This post is WAY overdue-I ran this on July 4th

I was so sick on Thursday, my son and daughter had just gotten over a stomach virus and I woke up Thursday morning with it. My lovely Mom came over and took care of my family while I slept and vomited It's a quick virus, by afternoon I had some soup, and by evening I was walking around and thinking about the fact that I had a race the next morning, lol.
I decided to get up and drive down to the race no matter how I felt the next morning, becuase I paid $27, and I was going to at least go and get my t-shirt!!!

Friday AM I felt a little wobbly, but I had a bowl of cheerios, some kefir and a banana. Then I took an Alleve to kill the residual achyness and headache, and so I could fool myself into thinking I was 100%. I started to think that I could probably run the race, I mean, it was only 4 miles, I run that all the time. I could just run it slow, and pretend I was at home running.

I left without telling dh I was running, I just wanted to get my shirt. Once I got there of course I got excited, and forgot all about being sick. I had to really talk to myself and tell myself to not go out fast, to just relax, to enjoy the run, who cares if the 11 year old girl passes me-

It was a really great race, super well organized, it was large, a chip-timed event. It was in a part of Columbus I am familiar with and it was so nice to run on the city streets again after all of those miles on the quiet country roads. I held myself back and I am glad I did because I had a really enjoyable race. My breathing was easy, it felt so nice not to be so focused on on passing the next person in front of me or checking my watch every minute (in fact I purposely left my watch in the car so I could not do this).

I was thrilled with the race. I finished in just under 34 minutes (33:56), my original goal had been to break 32 minutes. So even though I tried to hold back, I only held back about 30 seconds per mile, and I did still run faster than I do at home which is about a 9 minute mile. Plus, I felt good at the finish! I thought maybe I would be exhausted, but I think the adreneline was pumping, and I also imagined sweating out the sickness during the race and that helped. Also I'm sure the Alleve I took before the race helped some too

I am proud of myself for driving down to the race Friday morning-I was very close on Thursday night to just turning my alarm clock off. I don't think I would have forgiven myself for giving up that $27!!!