The Race That Wasn’t Run

Happy Tuesday. I hope your week is off to a great start.

I walked downstairs this morning wearing my UGA hoodie with the hood up so Finn decided he was going to wear his the same way to preschool. He got out of carpool with his backpack on and hood up and it was the cutest.

Catching up on the last few days over here…I have to tell you about the race that wasn’t run!

Last week I put together a super last-minute team for the Charlotte Marathon Relay. I was experiencing some major FOMO leading up to Saturday’s race day so I put a call out on Instagram to see if anyone wanted to run with me. I got our five-person team registered on Wednesday evening and headed to the expo at NoDa Brewing on Friday afternoon to pick up our packet. This is the first year that they expo was held at NoDa Brewing instead of the convention center uptown and it was SO much easier to navigate!

Finn had fun at the expo. He was crazy excited to get this teddy bear from the Novant Hemby Children’s Hospital booth. They had the kid’s name their bears (Finn chose Beary) and then had things like stethoscopes, bandaids, medicine syringes, bandaids, etc that they could use on their bears. I’ve truly never seen him so beside himself about a plush toy before. He named him “Beary” and was showing him off to everyone.

Can we please take a moment to appreciate this photo with the same lights in the background from Finn’s first Charlotte Marathon Relay when I ran on a Stroller Moms team!? OMG that tiny nugget!

We had to drop a bib and the timing device off to our relay starter on the way home and things started to go downhill with Finn. He looked like he might fall asleep in the car and cried on and off for the last 10 minutes of the ride home. I felt like something was off so I took his temperature when we got in the house and it was hovering at 100.

He opted to go straight to the couch and stayed there for the next couple of hours as his temperature climbed to 102. He fell asleep for a bit around 6p so I didn’t take him upstairs for bed until around 8:30p because I wanted to keep him close to me. Well, we got all cuddled in for bed and books around 8:45p and I’ll give you once guess what happened. The moment we laid down, Finn threw up everywhere….and I mean everywhere. I just laid there and let it happen assuring him it was okay and then got both of us into the shower.

I got the sheets changed and him in bed and he quickly fell asleep. I texted my team to let them know there was a high likelihood I wouldn’t be racing in the morning. It is so crazy to me how fast kids can go down when they get sick! Finn was totally fine on Friday until he started acting a little tired that afternoon and then BAM! It hit him hard.

I came downstairs and watched my first holiday movie of the year. I chose Love Hard on Netflix and found it to be super cute and easy to watch. Perfect for my crazy night. Finn ended up getting sick again around 12:30a and we repeated the shower, laundry, sheet change situation but he slept through until 7a after that.

While the vomiting seemed to be behind us, Finn still had a moderate fever on Saturday morning so I texted my team to let them know I was a no-go for my fourth leg. There was no way I was taking him out of the house. We had a very snuggle-filled Saturday morning full of movies and couch time.

I was so grateful that our anchor runner, Brian Mister, offered to cover legs four and five. Brian is a dad of three, lululemon ambassador and the race director for the Around the Crown 10K that Finn and I ran back in September. Get this y’all…not only did Brian jump in and run 11.4 miles instead of 6.3 at the last minute, but he also did so with a two-week old baby at home and pushing a jogging stroller. He averaged a 7:15 pace!

Our team crushed it and we placed fifth overall and third in mixed teams with a finish time of 3:23. I sure did miss being out there but so glad that it all worked out!

Thankfully, Finn’s fever broke by Saturday mid-afternoon and he was back to normal the next day. I don’t think he had a stomach bug because he only threw up those two times and never had any other GI symptoms. It’s not unusual for Finn to throw up at the onset of a high fever…it’s happened a few times before. I’m just glad he got over the virus quickly and is feeling better!

I have managed to get a couple of runs in since my missed race. I did four miles on Saturday afternoon and three miles on Monday. We are having the most gorgeous fall in Charlotte and it’s making running so wonderful.

Finn is still on his baking kick and asked if we could make brownies on Monday evening. Now that it’s getting dark so early, I think that I’m going to make Monday evening baking a regular thing. Finn really enjoys it and I really enjoy having a treat around for the week! I put him in his kitchen helper and he stays involved through the whole process. I love it for hands-on learning because Finn can do everything from experience different textures, smells and tastes to practice coordination by pouring, measuring and cutting to practice counting by portioning things like eggs.

I have a go-to brownie recipe that I love but I always like to mix it up and try new things. We tried a new brownie recipe last night and it was okay but doesn’t beat my favorite recipe.

Time for me to sign off to go teach yoga!

QUESTIONS

Have you ever had to bail on a race at the last minute? 

Have you ever run a relay race? 

Any brownie recipes that I should try? And any recommendations for things to add to the “bake with Finn” list? (he’s a big chocolate fan, haha!)