Thanks, Mrs. F, for sharing... ;)

Well, I officially have the sinus-cold-funk that had Mrs. F miserable for a number of days.  To me, the timing could not be worse.  I yet need to finish my coursework for this week, and I have our first race on Saturday.

We did not get out for a run last evening, and that was okay.  We ran just one day prior, so it might have been best not to try our first back-to-back runs in the days prior to our big day.

Our sitter backed out on us, but the race lists that they have childcare available.  Our eldest daughter will be there with us (she's been an unsung hero of our secret plan, but we'll touch on that more on Saturday), but the little ones just can't be expected to sit still for her for an hour on a cool morning.  We're also not sure what to do with one of our litlte ones--our fellow with special needs who has a hard time regulating his temperature (he can get very cold, very fast).  I would not want to foist him on the childcare folks at the race, since they'd have no preparedness for dealing with a child like him.  Our friend, Amy, who follows this blog (one of two Amys listed as followers), will be running, too.  Her husband will be there with their kids, so he might be able to lend a little support, if his kids cooperate.

Our eldest daughter is actually a little miffed with us, because we are forcing her to attend another one of her brother's races.  I guess she'll be surprised as well! We've already told her that we need her there to watch the kids because we need to run an errand during the race.  She looked confused when we told her that, but since one of the boys has a birthday coming up in a few weeks, we told her that we would be near a Kohl's store, and that we were going to sneak away to find a birthday present while our eldest son was running.  She thinks we still hate running as much as she does, so I think she was just jealous that we were getting out of watching the race!

Oh, we will have so much fun!

I'm still not sure if we will let our eldest son in on the secret at the registration table, or after he finishes the race.  Perhaps we'll tell him to stay near the finish, to cheer on neighbor Amy, and then Amy can ask him to stay with her to cheer on a couple of friends who will be finishing after her.

I already have a cover story for wearing our running shoes: we're going to wear them as a sign of solidarity, in support of his running.  Of course, underneath my jeans and my chamois shirt, I'll have on my running gear, all ready to go.

We're even thinking about having ourselves a bit of a celebration lunch after the race.  We're not quite sure about that, though.

Anyway, that's the end of my break, so I need to get back to work.