Ready???

BigDog 5k, Saturday 9/22/12
Left to right: Jess, Marissa, Me, Paws, Julie, Kevin, Sarah

I have to admit, I am immensely relieved to know that I can actually sing and play ukulele while running! This past Saturday was the first time I've ever actually put it all together. To be honest though, it turned out to be easier than I thought because it turns out that having to constantly turn around and avoid obstacles while shuffling in my apartment takes much more concentration than just running along a clear path. The sky was overcast and a little misty, the perfect running weather! I was quite nervous as we headed down to the Charles but thanks to my awesome team members, my spirits stayed high. For the UkeRunning Beta Test, we cheered and danced our way through the BigDog 5k and I performed three songs, one per mile. Surprisingly, we finished in just under an 11 minute mile pace!!! It was brought to my attention that I actually speed up when I'm singing. I guess I get too excited...but then speeding up contributes to me getting out of breath which you can definitely catch towards the end of "Brokenhearted" during Mile 2!

Small Sony voice recorder attached to my left arm with pre-wrap and rubber bands

Race Highlights:

-Marissa got a fantastic workout running backwards for about 80% of the time. She managed to capture all three songs and more on film, AND she didn't fall!
-My Husky ID stole the show a couple times when it slowly inched out of my sports bra as I was singing and fell out, both times during a song! Thankfully, Sarah was there and ready to snatch it off the ground as we ran.
-Julie found her true calling as the top kung fu fighter during Mile 3, in addition to making sure that Marissa didn't back into any trees while filming.
-Jess snapped photos left and right while cheering and singing along the whole way. Looking forward to seeing captured images of my terrible running form!
-Somehow, I managed to cut my finger while playing and bled a little bit on my ukulele...oops! Guess I bleed for UkeRunning!!!!
-Kevin's hair stayed fantastic.


All in all, it was a fun time and I hope everyone else on the course enjoyed it too. Either that or I managed to motivate them to run faster anyway just to get away from me! The video footage is pretty shaky and I will definitely have to come up with a better method for Komen, but here it is:

It's about 8 minutes long but if you're short on time, feel free to skip to whichever song you'd like:

Mile 1- Brighter than the Sun (Colbie Caillat)- 0:09
Mile 2- Brokenhearted (Karmin)- 2:07
Mile 3- Kung Fu Fighting (Carl Douglas)- 5:56***

***Definitely watch this one to see what Team UkeRunning is all about!!!***



Oh, and a quick shoutout to the NUTTS for killing it at the race and cheering us in at the finish!!!!