Sunday April 11, 2010 I ran in the Austin, Texas Capitol 10K. Matt had given me the gift of this race as a part of my Christmas present this past year. I'll be honest....when he told me he signed me up to run 6.2 miles I doubted myself but he believed in me. During the season of training for this event there were times that it was hard to get to the park and run. It seemed like from Christmas until March most days of the week were rainy and nasty with one pretty day spread between all the yucky. One of the days I was driving to the park,it was sunny and pretty and by the time I got there...3 minutes later it was raining, and I was that bad mommy that ran with a baby in the rain. All this to say as the race was approaching I didn't feel totally prepared because as I trained I only got up to running 4 miles at a time but I knew race day adrenaline can make you go further than you expect.

So today, as I prepared to begin the race my most awesome husband made the decision to run it with me. I still can't believe he did this. He coaches and teaches P.E. so he stays in shape but the boy isn't a fan of long runs through the park, he stopped those after I accepted his request for a first date. It's experiences like these that mold us closer together and makes my heart grow with love and gratefulness over our marriage. He was so encouraging and positive as we endured the 6.2 miles. He pushed Arabelle in the stroller and took pictures along the way. I offered to push the stroller at one point and within 5 seconds ran over a man, it was at that point I realized Matt was doing a good job with maneuvering through the runners that would go from a run to a dead stop in the middle of the trail.

We saw Elvis, two grown men in diapers pushing another grown man in a jogging stroller and a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader in full uniform running for the best costume contest. We also found ourselves among all the HEB employee section as we started the race and got to be a part of the HEB pep talk...Matt and I chanted "we love HEB" in order to fit in. All in all this was such a great experience.

We started the race downtown and ran past the Capitol and then up and down some monster hills. As we were on the final stretch Matt was not in appropriate race-day attire and was getting sore and told me to go ahead and finish strong. As I kicked it into high gear I was so excited to finish this race but felt sad that we had ran it all together as a family and I was going on without them.I was a pretty good ways ahead of them...or so I thought when Matt decided to catch up with me and deal with the pain later. We held hands and crossed that finish line as a team. I felt so loved, encouraged, supported and inspired. My husband encourages me to be everything he sees in me and not what I limit myself to. This showed me that I may not always believe in myself and that is just one of the reasons God gave me such a positive husband to build me up with his loving words and covering me with what is true while casting aside lies from the enemy.

Come next weekend Arabelle and I will be ready for race number two as we participate in the Blue Bell Fun Run here in Brenham. I honestly can't wait!