Life of Lulu: Elsie & Elsie & Betty HER Madison 5k

HER Madison 5k finish

My Mom stopped by our place in Madison for a great weekend of fun.

Friday night mom watched the little one while Spencer and I went house shopping, we're looking for possible income properties. Then we unloaded the giant new playground Gma E found for Little E.

Saturday was a mixed bag, us ladies did some gardening, Mom took another load of junk to the dump, went garage saling, stopped by a plant sale, had some lunch at Pizza Ranch, and then everyone went home for a quick nap. That afternoon we hung out around the house, as some t-storms came through and it was like 100 degrees with the heat advisory.

Sort of impromptu we decided to sign up and run the HER Madison 5k, a women's only race and fundraiser and it was the highlight of the weekend. The race started at 7:05 am so we had to get there early to get our stuff and get ready to run. The devil on my shoulder was really looking forward to the opportunity to wake Little Elsie up early, for the first time in her life, as we had to leave by 6:15 am. Of course, she woke up just fine on her own at 6:05 am.

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday in the upper 70s. When we arrived, there were several hundred people mulling about the starting line, about 100 women of which were in line for the 4 portapotties. "Only a man would come up with this" (turn out, yes), it never fails that women have to wait extra long in line for the bathroom. Most people didn't end up going as the race was about to start. A local fitness instructor led everyone on a much-too-fast warm-up, like he didn't give us 3 seconds per stretch, but it was adorable watching Little Elsie stretch, jump and do some high-knees for the entertainment of all. She was certainly the youngest woman to finish the race, which really surprised me as I expected at least a couple of children and it was pretty much only her. The race itself began at Hilldale Mall and was mostly residential, not much scenery (I heard the half marathon route is beautiful and follows the water). We took the stroller, of course, but Little Elsie probably walk/ran a mile of it. Would have done more but she likes to stop and look at things, so we threw her in the stroller and Gma Elsie ran/pushed her a bunch with lots of twisty-turns and entertaining sounds to keep her happy in there. It was especially adorable when Little E would run past a couple women and they would say how fast she was or cute or "does she ever get tired?" Nope. And I ran with her across the finish line, with lots of onlookers and she was thrilled! They even gave her a medal for finishing it, so I have some cute pictures of her with her very first medal. It was so fun and I was so proud of her. I plan to do at least another 5k in October for the Halloween season.

After the race we met up with Spencer at Cafe Hollander for some brunch, then us girls went to Target before heading home. After a bottle of milk and a 10 minute car ride, Little Elsie was down for the count and proceeded to nap 2 hours :) Guess it takes a 3 mile run to get her to sleep/nap!