This news is week-old by now, but I wanted to chronicle it anyway. If you’re not interested in reading about my running exploits then you probably should skip this post and scroll down to the next one, something I wrote earlier today about Archie’s advances catching up with his appearance. But if you do like it when I write about running, or if you’re as amazed as I am how tied together we all are no matter where we are or what we’re doing then you should consider hanging in there for a few more paragraphs.

Last Friday night I ran the inaugural Greenville Hospital System’s Swamp Rabbit Trail 5K in Travelers Rest. This event was the first official race on the newly-paved trail, but I ran a few miles on the trail’s stretch through downtown Greenville when I competed in the Spinx Run Fest’s half-marathon last October.

The first thing you should know is that I haven’t run in the evening since I finished the Greenville 5K Candlelight Run last June. I train in the mornings, usually beginning my runs around 6 o’clock, and I prefer to compete in the mornings, too. That said I realized last Friday evening early on in the race that I hadn’t eaten or hydrated properly to ensure I was prepared for optimum performance. And then there’s the fact that caring for three little kids all day long drains a mother’s energy even if that mother is doing her best to “take it easy” before her evening race.

The other thing you should know is that nearly 2,000 people showed up for the race. That was a large number of people to funnel down a footpath. The race’s start was congested, and it took much longer than usual for the crowd to thin out as we made our way down the trail. Weaving was inevitable, and then there was this one turn when the girl two footfalls in front of me completely stopped in her tracks when she realized she’d cut the cone and had to double back to avoid being disqualified. I ran right into her back.

It didn’t help either that more than one runner pushing a double stroller positioned him or herself close to the starting line, in the middle of the six-minute milers. Sure, the corrals were informal, marked only by cardboard signs with handwritten titles like, “6-minute milers,” “7-minute milers,” and “8-minute milers,” but I’d hoped the race organizers would have at least asked the runners with strollers to move back, please.

So the first mile was congested, the second mile included a sharp, steep climb up a hill in Grandview Cemetery, and the third mile sent us runners back the way we came, down the same trail we’d already traveled and into the runners and walkers who were still working their way toward the cemetery. That made for a special kind of congestion, for sure.

My first mile split was 7:51. That wasn’t ideal, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I did the best I could under the conditions. There was no two-mile marker so I didn’t get a split, and I don’t have a three-mile split either. I have ordered another Garmin, however, since my husband recently commandeered the one I bought last summer so I shouldn’t have these sort of record-keeping issues in the future. By mile three the heat and humidity was really bothering me, and I found myself repeating the lyrics from one of the Yo Gabba Gabba! song Archie likes so much, “Don’t stop, don’t give up. Keep trying, keep trying. Never stop, never give up.”

I finished the race in 24:10, which is the slowest I’ve run a 5K in a long time. There were no timing chips, though, and it was a gun-start race so who knows what my personal race time really was anyway. I did end up placing third in my age group, which is encouraging, and I finished 154th overall out of 1,606 runners who completed the course.

I also want to confess that this 5K was the first race I’ve ever run without earphones and music. I did so purposefully because I felt confident in my ability to cover the distance without needing the music’s distraction, and I’m glad I made the decision I did. The race took on a new dimension for me, and it was a true treat to hear the cadence simultaneous footfalls can keep when similarly paced runners find each other and hang together out there on the trail.

So there’s that, but then there’s this, too. I’d planned to forego the gym the morning before the race so when my alarm sounded I took a shower, dried my hair and dressed for the day. I chose something nice to wear, too, because I was expected at Kit and Jack’s school around lunchtime for a Mother’s Day celebration.

Most mornings I’m walking in the front door from a run before my children see me for the first time each day. I’m sweaty and smelly, and I’m wearing running clothes. I’ll exchange those clothes for another set of workout clothes before we leave for school, the kids and I. If all three kids have school I’ll go to the gym and workout with weights before I go home and shower. If only Archie has school I’ll wear my workout clothing until I have an opportunity to shower. I never know when it’ll come, that opportunity, since my day’s accomplishments are often dictated by my children’s play dates and appointments.

The Friday morning before the race I was emptying the dishwasher when Jack spoke up and wanted to know, “Where’s my other mommy?”

“What do you mean, your other mommy?” I asked in response even though I could anticipate Jack’s explanation.

Jack got embarrassed then and stumbled over his answer, stringing together words and mumbles that only halfway made sense but still I understood what he was trying to say.

“Do you want to know where your stinky mommy who wears old workout clothes and doesn’t comb her hair is? Do you wonder where this mommy who’s clean, and who’s wearing make-up, and who smells good came from?” I laughed as I spoke and Jack did, too, because what I said, that’s exactly what he’d meant.

I’ve been thinking of that conversation I shared with Jack in terms of what I’d write about here pertaining to last Friday’s race. We parents are all people will multiple interests. Some define us for our children, and some pass them by unnoticed. We find friends to compliment each of our life’s endeavors. It isn’t until our children are older that they can see how their parents parse out their personalities in so many ways. It takes a while for our children to learn that we’re the same person in all aspects of our lives, but yet we’re different, too. But some days, like last Friday, we get to show our children how we overlap.