Race for the Cure - Portland

I admit - have been a serious slacker with the whole blogging thing. This is what happens when your personal life completely falls into disarray and you go a little nutty. Okay, a lot nutty.

Long story short - the only way to get your life back on track is to start to do the things you were doing before the mind took a sabbatical.  This time it was Sara's idea, perpetuated by Lisa's need for pink legwarmer and two open spots in the Race for the Cure 5k -- that happened bright and early one Sunday morning. Here we are, looking more spry than what I was actually feeling.

Our team: Team Fitness Together, Lisa's studio here in the 'berbs of Portland. My goal - to finish. Unlike the Shamrock Run, which was plagued with wildly miserable weather, this day was filled with sunshine and a bearable coolness (as opposed to a freezing downpour).

So - we, and about 40,000 other runners and walkers, took off in downtown Portland to run the 5k. The race will filled with 'survivors' - from all over, running in a swarm of pink. Having a sister and best friend who both battled breast cancer (and won), the race did have more of a special meaning so I was happy to be a part of it (don't get me wrong, the St. Patrick's Day and beer had special meaning, just of a different kind). We're all surviving in one form or another when it comes right down to it.

Armed with an arsenal of gadgets, I timed the race with my Nike+ gear and found that the course was not actually a 5k, but a little longer - 3.8 miles, which I completed in about 32 minutes. Not bad for someone who hasn't been able to muster up the energy to walk in a straight line recently, muchless partake in a 5k. Anyone who runs on a regular basis, stops and starts again knows how difficult (and shocking) the transition can be on the body. So in order to make sure mine did not collapse in post-5k shock, we set out immediately afterwards in search of the best bloody mary we could find - with success.

The Urban Farmer was gracious enough to provide us with not only Bloody Mary's, but also a Bloody Mary Bar - complete with every pickled vegetable imaginable. It was like a salad in a glass, only a little more spiked - just the way we like it.  And now Sara can say she's been there. Finally.