All About Our Fort Collins Trip!

I will warn you now - this will be a long post! This is my first official blog and I like to go on and on about things so if you have a good hour of free time, please, read on! I promise you, they will not all be this long! But this will be about a whole weekend and a lot of things happened this weekend in Fort Collins! Enjoy!

We are back after a fun weekend in Fort Collins! It started off on Friday with us waking up in SD with 2 feet of snow on the ground and it was still coming! What? It IS May right?! So, everything was closed down and I didn't have any kids to watch and Chris had to stay home from work. It was supposed to stop at noon and clear up so we were hoping to still be able to leave for CO in the early afternoon. By 2pm, the snow was melting off at a good speed, but they were still not opening the Interstate so we sat and waited. At 3pm, they had opened the WY Interstate, but still not the SD one so there were 12 miles standing in our way of leaving. And then Chris remembers this Frontage road that he used to run on that runs along the Interstate and takes you right to where you get on the Interstate in WY. So, we decide to leave. We live about 10 miles from the Interstate and when we got to it, there were about 15 cars and semis on the off ramp waiting for them to open the Interstate so they could go. But we just turned onto the Frontage road on were home free in about 12 miles. Later we joked that we should have went back and had the people waiting on the off ramp pay us to show them the way. :) The thing we didn't understand is that by this time, all of the roads were DRY! The snow was gone from the roads and it had already dried up, but they still didn't open them and I guess they didn't open until 9pm that night! So, I'm glad Chris knew about that road so we could get on the road.
The trip there was very uneventful (although some other roads were closed so we had to go the long way - about 100 extra miles) but we finally arrived around 11pm and we all just went right to bed.
Saturday morning, I was up early to go and register for the Cinco Cinco 5K. It was right across the street from our motel so it worked out perfectly. The race was a memorial race for a former CSU student who was an avid runner and was out for a run one day when he was hit and killed by a drunk driver. So, the money from the race goes to scholarships for CSU students in the amount of $555.55 each and I think they gave out 24 this year. :) The race had 198 runners and it was a great atmosphere. I didn't get a PR - my time was 29:24 - but it was a fun race around campus and I ran with a girl who was a student there and she kept me going. Part of the race was a competitive walk and there was a lady in front of us the entire time ( I really don't understand why they don't just run when they are walking that fast anyway!) so the girl that I was running with and I decided that we had to beat the lady who was walking! So, we sprinted it out at the end and she beat her by 5 seconds and I beat her by 2 seconds! YAY!
After my race, there was a kid's race which we knew Caiden would do, but didn't know about Chloe. I really wanted her to do it, because I knew when Caiden got his goody bag and medal, then she would be disappointed that she didn't get anything. She decided that she would run it if I ran it with her. After a few seconds of running, she starts crying and I'm trying to get her to have fun with the race, but she wants nothing to do with it! But after most of the other kids pass her, she calms down and actually starts running. We are 3rd from last, but she's running! I kept telling her that she was going so fast that I couldn't keep with her and so know she's laughing and really having a good time. Caiden was done by now and waiting for us at the finish line. They had a piece of ribbon out for each of the kids to run through and break and Chloe LOVES this idea. The medals were a bit hit with the kids and Chloe didn't take hers off for a couple of hours.
Later that day, we headed over to a farm where the kids could pet the animals and go on pony rides. Chloe LOVES horses more than anything so she had a blast. She talked about riding Brownie the rest of the day. Caiden loved the cows and the pigs and thought it was pretty funny when the pigs were hanging out in the mud.
That night, we met up with 2 people who Chris had met in one of his online running forums. We went to dinner at a place called Beau Jo's and it was very worth going over my calories that day! It was delicious! It was fun meeting Dan and Caroline and Caroline's family too. Dan's family didn't come because his wife was due to have their son next week so she thought she better stay home this trip. I told him that she would probably have the baby while he was running and he joked that someone at an aid station would yell out that his baby was born. :)
After dinner, the kids and I headed to the "heated" indoor pool and played in there for a couple of hours. We met a lady (her husband was also running the marathon the next day) and her 2 year old little girl so we all had a fun time playing in the water.
Sunday morning was a beautiful morning so I was happy that they were going to have good running weather. We made it down to the finish line of the marathon around 845 and was hoping to see Chris come in around 910. And then I heard that the marathon actually hadn't started until 615 so then we were waiting until about 925 until we would see him. There were SO many people there. They had all 4 races finishing at the finish line (5K, 10K, 1/2 marathon, and marathon) so there were a lot of racers coming in at any given time and there spectators galore! Lots going on!
Around 9am, I get an unfamiliar call on the phone and I could barely hear the person on the other end. And then I hear, "This is Dan's wife - I had the baby." WHAT???? I started yelling and probably looked like a crazy person but lots of people were cheering for the runners so maybe I didn't look that crazy ;) So, I get her number so I could give it to Dan when he gets across the finish line. I see him coming and decide to yell, "Dan, your wife had her baby!!!!" as he was coming in. I had no idea if he had heard me or not, because there were so many people, but it turned out that he had and came over to me when he crossed the finish line and called his wife. :) What a fun story to tell him one day! He finished in 3 hours and 36 seconds so he had a great race.
Around 930 I realize that Chris' Boston dreams had fallen short this time around and I told the kids that they needed to look for Daddy because he should be coming soon. And then we see his green shirt coming towards us. He finished in 3:18:05 which was his fastest marathon thus far, but fell short of a Boston Qualifying time by about 7 minutes. He was bummed and the kids picked up on that so Chloe picked a dandelion for him on our walk back to the motel and gave it to him and told him that she had yelled loud so he would run fast. :) How cute is that! To the kids, he is the fastest runner in the world.
The drive home was uneventful (thankfully) and the kids were pretty good for the most part. We did hear from Caiden every couple of miles when he wasn't sleeping, "How many minutes now?" and "Are we almost to Belle Fourche"
Although Chris didn't get boston this time, he is thinking about trying again in September in Billings or Bismarck. He will get it - when he puts his mind to something, there is no stopping him! He is still the number one runner in our books! :)