A fun time and meeting goals

We went to Rhody Days in Florence this past weekend.

I have many memories of attending Rhody Days myself as a child and I've always wanted to make a tradition of Rhody Days for my kids.

Mr. Wiedz isn't really a parade and carnival kind of guy. So Rhody Days isn't on his list of must dos for a year. Neither is the Independence Day parade or Dallas' Summerfest. I drag him to the Polk County Fair every year and we don't even discuss the State Fair.

This year I made a goal to run the 5K at Rhody Days, called of course the Rhody Run.

When a carnival and parade include some exercise Mr. Wiedz changes his mind.

We had a great time in Florence for Rhody Days. #1 and #2 didn't have school on Friday so we tried to get out of the house early. 8:00 stretched to 9:30 but eventually we were on the road and made it to Florence in the early afternoon. My cousin, Scary, took #1 and got her daughter out of school for the rest of the afternoon. After some hanging out and enjoying being out of the car Scary and her husband, C$, treated our family to a trip to the carnival. The kids had so much fun riding the rides and enjoying some cotton candy.

After a pizza dinner, some Wii and old-school-Mike-Tyson-punch-out-Nintendo everyone was in bed.

Saturday morning Mr. Wiedz and I headed out for the Rhody Run while Scary and C$ watched all 6 kids.

Awhile back I started running/walking on my treadmill and using a 12 week walk/run program to increase my ability to run. I abandoned the run/walk program awhile back because I just wanted to run. After I stopped using the program I would just run for 15 minutes. Then I noticed I was really close to a mile so I ran a mile, then I went a little faster and noticed I was close to running for 20 minutes so I changed my plan and ran for 20 minutes. I kept doing that until I was consistently running 2 miles. During that time I decided it is always nice to have a goal so I figured I could find a 5K to walk this spring then maybe by the end of the summer I would find one to run. When I shared the plan with Mr. Wiedz he thought I should just set the goal of running one this spring. I googled 5K Oregon and found the Rhody Run. So started my training with a date of May 16th.

My fabulous neighbor happens to be a runner so she and I started running on weekends near our homes. We found a place we could park on a not-so-busy-road. From where we parked to the end of the road is 1.5 miles so there and back to the car equals 3 miles, the length of a 5K. For all of March and much of April we ran those 3 miles every Saturday.

May 16th came and my goal became finishing the Rhody Run without stopping.

I finished without stopping in 37 minutes 13 seconds.

To finish out the weekend, Mr. Wiedz and I returned to Scary's house, showered and got ready for the day. We made a picnic lunch and went to the park. After lunch we watched A in the kids parade. It was a perfect parade to attend, lasted about 15 minutes, 1 handful of candy and we were out of there. We returned to the house and laid #4 down for his nap. When he woke up we went to a lake just south of Florence and played in the water, dug in the sand, played Frisbee and relaxed. BBQ dinner when we got back. And peaceful sleep after a full and fabulous day.

I think we have a new tradition.