Rewards of Race Day Volunteering!

Celina and I volunteered at the Monster Dash 5K in St. Paul. Celina has 4 hours of volunteer work to do each semester for school. I thought volunteering for a race would be a great way to give back to those that helped me in my races. 

Our shift was early at 7am to 11:30am. 

Our Job was to make Powerade. 

We were told to expect about 7000 runners!

We got super lucky and most of the water cups were filled and stacked waiting. Not a lot to do but we kept ourselves busy. 

It was nice when the runners would thank us for our help. I loved watching all the cute costumes. I occasionally would ask a few people how they liked the race. All good things I heard back. 

The fun part is always at the end of a race. People get water, food, sit talk listen to the entertainment.. It's a party first thing in the morning!

I had my costume ready to go.. 

The beautiful view we had from our volunteer spot. 

The race took place by the Mississippi river front. Gorgeous day to be racing and volunteering. 

There are so many rewards to helping out others and volunteering. It just felt good to give back to other runners. 

We had so much fun.. We'll be doing more race day volunteering!

Training..is hard work!

This soccer training is hard work. How is it that I can run 8 miles and not feel super tired, but when I run with a soccer ball for 15 minutes I'm exhausted?

The kids and I went to the local park and practiced soccer drills out on the field. The season for soccer is over and all the nets were removed. They treated the field with those dirt plugs and it smelled like dog poop. Not pleasant at all. 

I wanted to test out my skills of passing, kicking and running with the ball. I've watched both my kids and have done some practicing with them over the years so I'm not completely starting from scratch. 

I've never worn soccer cleats before and it really makes kicking the ball a lot easier. Regular running shoes don't offer enough foot protection from kicking the ball, but the soccer cleats sure do the trick. My kicks, passes felt a lot stronger with the added foot protection. 

Celina and I went for a 1.3 mile jog after we got home and my feet felt so light after switching back to my running shoes. Maybe the next shoe improvement will be a cross over running/soccer cleat that is light weight to make soccer players that much faster!

My main goal of playing soccer is to make me a faster runner. Soccer requires a lot of running and sprinting. I'll get a workout and not realize I'm doing hard speed work because I'll be concentrating on getting to the ball fast and having fun doing it. I'm hoping after 8 weeks my speed level will have improved from one day a week speed sessions. Lets just hope I don't get injured doing this! 

Happy Friday!

Just a few doubts

Ever want to try something new.. then get all these self doubts? I signed up to play in a fun soccer rec co-ed group and now I'm having doubts about it. I got a message from the coach to all the team members  "just don't get hurt".  I don't want to get hurt out there playing a fun game of soccer. I've only played soccer with kids and now I'll be playing with adults! 

I'm still going through with trying soccer. Our first official game is next Wednesday. I still haven't practiced. That might be a good idea tonight! I'll just take the kids with me to have some fun while kicking around the soccer ball. 

I spent a really long time stretching this morning. I think the hill running jarred my back a bit last night while running my make-up two miles. My back was  aching, and it kept me tossing and turning all night long. I'm skipping the path hills and will be running later on in the afternoon when the temperatures warm up and I'm done working for the morning. 

I've been staying close to home for my running routes because we've had a lot of road construction going on right outside the neighborhood. They were getting ready to paint lines on the new road yesterday so I hope its going to be finished 100% today. Its just not safe biking or running with big machines right next to you.