Karate and 5K Weekend....

Catchy title, huh??

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to attend That Other Kid's karate belt test! He was testing for his "red belt" in the Little Dragons program (for 6 and under students) and he was stoked! Friday night he practiced his kata for Form 2 and perfected it just in case he was asked to do it for his test. He had been told he would have to know Form 1 and Form 2 in order to get his new belt, but we weren't sure if he would actually have to do it or not. This is the last belt before advancing to "American Karate" for students 7 and older so it was a BIG DEAL!!


Horse Riding Stance


Beginning Form 2


part of Form 2


Finishing up Form 2

I was sooooo proud of him....he did awesome during the belt test and concentrated to the best of his ability for this test. He had some awesome kicks and powerful punches and one of the moms told me "he did great"! Toward the end of the testing session after the entire group was done the lead instructor called him out of the group and said that "since you are the big bad brown belt you get to show us your kata". He was the only brown belt in the test so he had to do this by himself. The instructor asked him which kata he wanted to do and he replied "form 2". So he was told to go ahead. He turned to face the crowd of parents and started. I couldn't believe how well he did. He kicked above his head on some of his kicks. He did every move just as he was supposed to and shocked even the instructor with his performance! It was a proud mommy moment when other parents came up to me and said he did "awesome"!


First sweat to tough your new belt! And yes, there was sweat, especially after the kata!


Congratulations to the newest Red Belt!


Once he received his RED BELT we left the studio and went to breakfast to celebrate. It was a nice way to celebrate his achievement. After breakfast (whole wheat pancakes w/fruit for me) we went home and I started preparing for my 5K race with That Kid.

My friend that was going to watch That Other Kid at the race injured her foot and was not able to attend so That Other Kid had to stay home since dh had to work. He was really bummed out and told me if he "couldn't go then neither could I". I felt bad for him, but I told him there would be other races that he would be able to attend. Once I got to the race location I'm really glad he didn't go...there were sooooo many people there it was crazy. There were 1355 racers for the 5K and before that there was a 1 mile "fun run" for kids. I have no idea how many there were in that race but it was crazy just how many people were there. The park that the race was in is not really that big and there were masses of people EVERYWHERE!! It took more than 5 minutes to get up to the starting line and I wasn't even at the back of the pack!

That Kid got to the race site about 20 minutes before the starting gun went off so we didn't really have time for much of anything other than getting his shirt and the timing chip on him. We had another race participant take our picture together and I had him take mine but that's all we got. I was kind of bummed that I didn't get one of me crossing the finish line but there will be other races!! (I have to keep saying that to make sure it happens!!)




Anyway...here are some of the details from the race!

Saturday was C25K Wk5D3 -- walk 5 minute for warmup, run 20 minutes, walk 5 minute for cool down, so my goal was to do my training for this race and then walk and "maybe" run some afterwards. We started the race at a sllllllooooooowwwww walk to get up to the starting line and I had already decided I would start running when I crossed the line, so I did. I started my run at 2:27 into my "warmup" and kept running until the podcast said, "cool down" !!! At that point I started walking and took off my long sleep t-shirt!! I was HOT!! It was only 50 degrees and already close to 5p.m. but I had worked up a sweat running for 22 1/2 minutes!! I was about 1 minute away from the 20 minute run session being complete when I looked down at the IPod and saw that I had already RUN 20 full minutes!! I almost started crying I was so shocked and happy! I asked That Kid if he thought I could do this well and he said, "Yeah, I knew you could do it"!! I can't tell you how happy that made me!! Another proud mommy moment!

At that point, after I had shed my t-shirt and did my "cool down" I told That Kid I wanted to finish off the race by running 1 minute/walking 1 minute intervals so he started timing me and encouraging me to keep it up! I was going slow but I was keeping up with the intervals. Toward the end of the race we had to go up a hill and I had to take a walk break on that one, but then I ran extra on another of the intervals. A couple of times as we were running he started running backwards and had me do short sprints to "tag" him in order to start walking again! He made it fun to keep pushing myself harder even though I was tired at that point! One time he was running backwards and I passed a lady and she said, "show off!" and I said, "yeah, it must be rough to be able to show off like that so far into the race"!

Btw, I was passing people all through out the race and I can't tell you how good that felt! Yes, lots of them were walking or with dogs but I was still passing people even some RUNNERS (or woggers)!!

I finished the race with a burst of UPHILL energy (what is it with putting the finish line at the top of a hill???) with an official time of 46:19 and 58th out of 83 in the 45-49 year old females!! That time is 2:09 faster than my first 5K that I did with my brother in October and I can assure you I ran A LOT MORE during this race!

The C25K program is slated to be complete on January 8th and the Sisterhood of Shrinking Jeans is holding a virtual 5K that day. I'm hoping to find a "real" 5K to run here the metroplex. I've already told That Kid I'm planning to run on January 8th if he wants to run again with me! He didn't say yes or no, but I think he's at least thinking about it!

It was a great Saturday!!