Those who risk, win: Baystate Half 2018

I'm sure you've been dying to read this update, and here it is. Not even a week late! Amazing.
So I did run last Sunday, as I said I was going too. Turns out I ran more than I anticipated, making it to around 7.5 before I started walk/running. Pretty good considering 6 was my max and even that was a one time only training run. Of course, I still had to stop at every porta-john on the course, but that's just something I'm going to have to embrace, for now, I guess. The course itself wasn't too bad and the weather turned out pretty nice considering it was cloudy and drizzly when I woke up. Wind was only an issue on the back side of the course on the Esplanade and on the bridges. Other than that, it wasn't too noticeable. Ryan and X came for the end but it was too cold for X so they ended up waiting in the car for me. At least they made it to the end, last year, Scott and I went to meet Ryan and Brittany and arrived after they had finished!
Speaking of finishes, I suppose you want my stats now. I'm going to give both Garmin and official stats because they're widely different. Of course, every bathroom stop I paused my Garmin because I like to know runtime, not time elapsed. And I'm sure you're all aware that the course time doesn't stop for you. So my course time was 2:45, official. My Garmin time was 2:26. I guess I took 20 minutes worth of bathroom breaks! If there's one thing I would like to improve on now, it would be that. 20 minutes is almost enough time for another whole 5K! Unfortunately, I'm not really sure there's much I can do in the way of eliminating bathroom breaks, except let time pass. At the end of the day though, I'm just happy I was able to finish the race and that I can reasonably expect to be able to continue running longer distances now.
In a weird coincidence, this half was 11 weeks after his birth. The Louisiana half, which was the last half I ran, I was 11 weeks pregnant. For comparison, I ran Louisiana in 2:30, also with bathroom breaks. But I was a bit more in shape then, considering I had been working out all summer and had just run a trail marathon back in November. So that one was probably easier, though it didn't seem like it at the time.
So I was a bit sore the day after, but who wouldn't be. It took a long time for me to not be sore after running a half and then I went 5 months without running longer than 4 miles once or twice. So that's going to be something else I need to build back up. Since I didn't want to run and make the soreness worse, I decided to at least go out walking this week. We went all over the place this time, the bike path, the battle road, you name it, we went there. Two of our walks were over 4 miles, the others were shorter. Still, I feel better walking since I haven't been able to get to the gym. Plus, stroller time is the only long nap X takes, so it's either go out walking while he naps or sit at home and listen to him cry every 30 minutes when he wakes and probably won't go back to sleep. I'll choose to walk every time in that case.
But now I need to make a choice. Sign up for another half or just run for recreation. Both seem like good ideas on any given day. The biggest influence is the weather, which could ruin both choices. If I run for recreation, I know I won't go when it's too cold, windy, snowy, etc. If I have a half to run, I'm more likely to go out and run. However, I wouldn't want to run in that weather, so I just don't know. Sometimes it's just hard to make a choice.