Today was another busy one. Again this year we joined team “We Love You Brady Bukowski” and ran/walked/hiked in the CHaD Hero Half Marathon and Ripcord 5K. This year they also added a 10K (6.2 miles) wooded hike. Rosy and I did that with the kids while Alan ran the half (13 miles!) again. The day was perfect, a beautiful day to be out and active.

We started with a bouncy house warm up. We also ended with a bouncy house cool down. The kids are thoroughly exercised today!

The course was a nice mix of road, trail, and hills. We started on the road for awhile, then the signs pointed us into the woods.

Leaving the road and heading into the woods!

Look at the muscles on these two!

It was a beautiful day for a hike.

I know the area in general, but we saw a lot of cool new things while walking off the beaten path.

We took a few tiny side trips.

Monkey bars in the woods?

A rope course. Lex wants to come back here sometime.

Apparently the Dartmouth Ski Team practices here.

There worked out to be nice pause points at the one third mark and the two third mark, so we took two breaks along the way for drinks and snacks. We had a map with us too, but the course was very well marked so we used it to see how far along we were and to keep the kids entertained.

Quick break. Lex pulled out the map to show us the way.

For the final third we walked the same path the half marathon runners were running. We cheered them on and looked for runners we knew. It was a great way to reinvigorate everyone for the final stretch.

This is supposed to be a picture of the eight minute pacer in the yellow shirt with the clown wig. Imagine running 13 miles at exactly 8m/mile with a clown wig on. Crazy.

We got back about 20 minutes before Alan. Of course we also started about 40 minutes before him! His pace was a bit quicker than ours. :) We had just enough time to grab some food and settle in to watch the incoming runners, cheer them on, and wait for Alan.

Here’s Alan coming in! Thirteen miles!

Our family of CHaD heros. :)

While Alan stretched and cooled down, Lex and Eve headed back to the bouncy house. They are going to sleep well tonight! I’m really impressed with how well they did. I came prepared with things to do and ways to keep them busy and steeled myself for six miles of complaining, but they didn’t complain at all! Once or twice they asked to sit down for a bit, but then they got right back up and carried on. They chatted and were very pleasant company the entire way. It was great!

After the run we went home and showered then went to the post-run party for awhile. It’s a school night and we’re all pretty tired, so Alan had a good hot meal (it was a pot-luck party so the options were plenty) and we hung out for a bit, then headed home.

On that note, Eve has been in the shower for about half an hour now. I should go move the bedtime process along. :) Like I said, we’re all pretty tired!