Steelers 5K and Kids' Kickoff Event

Working a bit backwards catching up on posts here, but a few weeks ago I ran a 5K with my friend, Brett (the father of Jake's on-again, off-again girlfriend Maddie from preschool) and immediately following the 5K, the kids participated in a 40 yard dash on Heinz Field. 

Leading up to this race, I had been struggling a bit with running and my interest/motivation in continuing to do so.  But that's a separate post for another time. Back to the race. Despite a few kid illnesses, I've been pretty healthy for the past few months then, of course, OF COURSE, I managed to get some type of wicked head cold/sinus infection that week.  What started out as annoying mid-week escalated to full-blown miserable by Friday night.  I even contacted someone from the race to see if Brian could run in my place the next morning if I couldn't make it.  He could have done that, but of course, that morning, I was stubborn and convinced myself that once I got there and got going, I would feel much better.

My smile here is totally for the sake of the kids.

Yeah, that never really happened.  It didn't help that it was about 72 degrees at 9am and 95% humidity.  It is astounding the difference that the humidity can make, I felt like I couldn't breathe between being stuffy from the cold and having a cough and the humidity weighing down my lungs.

But---we finished!!  In just over 35 minutes, and that's with stopping to walk briefly 3 times (2 walk breaks on hills, one because I was having a coughing fit and had to stop for a minute to work that out) 

Brian was manning both of our kids and Maddie, here are some pics of them being cute in and around the stadium while Brett and I ran:

 I was in a bad mood by the time we finished if we're being honest; I was mad at myself for being so stubborn and insisting on running and mad at myself that I had to stop and walk those few times.  Then I found a tray of cookies being passed out and felt a bit better.  Then, it was time for the kids event and any amount of foul mood I had was gone in an instant.  The whole day was worth it to see those kids on the field, it was absurdly adorable. 

unfortunately blurry, but that's Jake slightly to the right in the jersey

Then, just when I thought we had already achieved maximum levels of cuteness, I was alerted to the fact that Liam had become an overnight celebrity: his pictures were featured on the steelers site!! You can actually see them here, pictures 23 and 24 and here they are as well: