And I ran, I ran so far away...

I can't even begin to tell you how amazing our morning was yesterday. I was the atypical kid on Christmas morning. At 6 a.m. I jumped out of bed, looked at the clock and realized I still had 30 minutes before my ALARMS went off. I'm actually surprised I slept those extra 30 minutes. I snuck upstairs to wake the kids up (this never happens in real life, it's typically the other way around) and Logan was snoring softly into his pillow. As I slooooooowly opened his t-shirt drawer he shot up out of bed and screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE!?!??? IS IT TIME!?!??!!" This is my kid. MY kid. He could feel me all but shivering with excitement and he'd never been so cooperative as he was yesterday morning. He even allowed me to wake Lillie up by myself without completely alarming her. Imagine walking into a bear's den... a bear who'd been in hibernation and was likely to be very, VERY hungry. That is the fear I live with when it comes to times where I have to wake that child. I never know if the bear will remain half asleep or submissive to what I might need her to do, or if she will be VERY ANGRY AND EAT MY FACE OFF. Lucky for myself and Logan, she was super excited about race day as well.

We ate a super nutritious breakfast of "all you can eat" waffles (thanks Eggo for making breakfast stress free! I am only being slightly sarcastic about the nutritious part!) After breakfast we made Daddy coffee, packed up the rest of our gear and counted the minutes before we absolutely had to wake Daddy up. Imagine that whole bear scenario, only the bear has been infected and is now a zombie bear. A zombie bear that needs coffee and NOT a lot of excitement upon first waking up... which is hard when the bear lives with 2 morning people and a 3 year old girl. Poor bear. We were able to get him dressed and out the door in time, praise the lawd. Lucky for us, we live a literal hop, skip, and jump from the Atlanta Motor Speedway (on a clear night you can hear the races, and we live maybe 15-20 miles away TOPS.) Everything lined up like it was meant to be. It was a picture perfect morning... a little chilly to start, but perfect all the same.

 We're not the least bit excited to be alive. Quite the contrary.

After parking and getting the kids out of the car we started getting our gear together and my beautiful friend who walked with me all those months ago during my "Rosie" days walked by with her beautiful family. I should say that her pregnant belly literally lead the way as she's pregnant with their FOURTH daughter. To say I'm envious of all her sweet babies would be an understatement, I could use a few more sweet babies around here seeing as mine are trying to grow up on me overnight. But I was so excited to see her, SO excited! Here I was RUNNING A 5K, and I had her to thank for motivating me and being my exercise buddy for months. How did I ever get so lucky to have such amazing friends? Anywho. It was pretty amazing that we ran into her family at the time we did, as had we been any later we probably NEVER would have crossed paths on the race path. She did a great job of getting some good ones of our family before, during and after. Seriously though, I am so lucky to have ran into her pre-race.

We were both sporting our mama-mazing starlet glasses. These things aren't coincidence people!

The "love bug" was contagious there. And yes, we really do act this ridiculous with each other on an every day basis. I am very lucky.

The race. THE RACE!!! It was phenomenal. The Husband compared it to a massive rave for runners. You could feel the love oozing throughout the crowd, and BOY was it a crowd. I'm really glad I was able to run "medicated." It's probably the reason I'm feeling totally awesome physically today. I could have run another 5k afterwards. Minor details, moving along! They allow groups of 1,000 out in waves every five minutes. And no, you didn't read that wrong. 1,000 PEOPLE AT A TIME. We were in the second group and the Color Run themed "caution tape" they used to divide the crowd literally dropped right behind the Husband's head. We had Lillie in her little pink Little Tikes push car filled with waters (and my coffee) under the "hood," Lo rocked out beside me and was mimicking every move I made. While I stretched, he stretched, when I squealed with excitement, so did he. After the first countdown we managed to get a great little clip of just how "amped" he and I truly were.

Are you psyched? I'M PSYCHED! CHEST BUMP, YO!

And then it was our turn... the official pace car of the Atlanta Motor Speedway led us out onto the race path and we were OFF. Logan made it very apparent that he was going to run as fast as he could for as long as he could, so I said screw it, ME TOO BUDDY! ((Today, I regret that for me at least. Not even super strength Tylenol gave my thighs and hips the relief they required. OY VEY.)) Lo's feet barely touched the ground for the first kilometer and he quickly discovered the fine art of wearing his bandana "bandit style" whilst running through the "color" zones. I'm pretty sure we ALL inhaled our fair share of powder though. Let's just say "rainbow boogies" and be done with it, ok?

 Lo seems to float in this picture... Princess Lillie cheated for most of the race. More on that later.

Around the 3rd kilometer "color" zone, I became aware of Logan acting different. I mean, shit, he just ran 3 kilometers pretty much non-stop. I slowed him down and assessed him. He was pale and his heart was beating out of his chest. I pretty much freaked out, because OMG MY CHILD HAS A HEART DEFECT AND WHAT THE FERRIS WHEEL WAS I THINKING!!! Since we knew Lillie and the Husband were behind us getting "pink-ified" at the "color" zone, we slowed down to a walk.

 Taking a very necessary breather. Also notice he didn't get hardly any pink on him. Chicken.

The Husband rounded the corner and we switched children. Little did I know we were basically at the end of the race. We had maybe 1,000 to 1,500 feet left to run. So I let Lillie "run" in the worst possible shoes for running, she chose fashion over function that day. We had to stop several times as she would literally run her shoes off and we'd have runners chasing us down to hand them to her. Girlfriend didn't even let on that she was missing a shoe or two until someone would alert us to the fact. She was a girl on a mission, people! At the 4th kilometer "color" zone we were pelted with purple powder. I, on the other hand, made the totally sane decision to log roll through the inch plus layer of powder coating the asphalt. My beautiful yoga leggings were anything BUT black after that. It was amazing, I highly suggest it if you do the run in your area. I wish I'd done it at all the "color" zones.

 Chugging along like she owns the damn place. As she so often reminds us, "I da boss." Indeed she was. The "pink-ified" pigtails makes it all the more awesome. Her scalp is still heavily pink and purple... oddly enough, so is her belly button.

We caught up with the Husband and Logan right before the finish line where they'd already done a lap around it and then came back to find us. ((Keep in mind I was heavily delayed by constantly putting shoes back on a certain diva child.)) What greeted us at the finish line was unbelievable. Colored clouds of powder drifted through the air like something you'd expect from Willy Wonka's factory. People dancing and hugging. Full grown adults in tutu's relaxing on the pavement. Music thumping from every direction. I would seriously partake in this race every chance I could get if I had the means to do so. I hear they've opened a race in New Orleans... I'm super tempted to sign up. JUST SAYIN. Anybody got connections in New Orleans? I don't do hotels unless someone else is paying!

 I really need a tutu.

Lo was bummed he didn't get to meet "Lightning McQueen," but it's still pretty awesome that he got to lean against the Atlanta Motor Speedway's official Pace Car. His Papa (my dad) was pretty excited about that too.

 Dancing with her Daddy at the finish line. This is as excited as the diva gets in crowds.

I don't regret a minute of my journey these past 7 months. I've lost nearly 50 pounds, gained a fantastic support group for both my weight loss and in general, and it's all lead me to one of the most amazing days of my life. As I told Logan when he asked if we won after crossing the finish line, "Yes, Logan, we all won today."