My First 5K

On Saturday, March 13th, I traveled with my friend Emily to the Springfield Expo Center to check in for my first 5K running experience. If you've been reading my blog very long, you know that my sweet friend and neighbor Kim and I have been training since the beginning of January. We were training for June, but I got a harebrained idea to run one in the middle of March.

As we walked into the building, I saw all these people who were obviously REAL runners. Yeah. Loved that feeling. They were wearing running pants, had serious looks on their faces, and many of them were doing plyometrics before we lined up for the race. Ugh. Just let me stretch my quads and I'm good to go! But I didn't let that bother me (too much). I knew that I was a rookie and should be proud that I was at least trying.

They called for the 10K runners, and we knew that meant we had about 15 minutes until our lineup. Emily and some of her friends that I met got ready (mentally ready...and a few stretches to get us physically ready) and listened for the 5K runners to be called.

And then...they called us.

As we lined up for the race, I felt so excited! Cheryl was right...the racing day excitement and adrenaline is a great feeling! I was pumped! So much so that as Emily turned back to take my picture, I looked like this:













Yep. The most unflattering picture EVER and I'm sharing it on my blog. That's how much I love my readers and want you to understand the story! In fact, Emily posted this on facebook and a girl said, "OK, she looks WAAAAY too happy to be racing! HAHA!"

To which I responded, "I agree...I had only taken about 10 steps at that point...lol!"

I kept a good pace, never stopped to walk, and finished with the time of 39:54 (really good time for me...Emily finished around 36 minutes). If you knew me...or should I say...if you ever watched me play sports in my younger days...you would know that I've always been "slow" when it comes to running! My junior year of high school I hit a line drive down the right field side during a district championship softball game, and if anyone else would have been running, it would have been an inside the park home run for sure. But me...I only made it to third! So I never really considered my time when doing this, I'm just thrilled that I ran the entire thing.

Who cares if there were 10K people who ran theirs faster than I ran 5K! :o)

As I crested the HILL that preceded the finish line, and looked ahead and saw that the end was near, I could feel myself become emotional. I'm pretty sure if Kim was with me I would have let those emotions show more, but I was among so many "real" runners...and real runners don't cry, do they?

When we got to her house afterward, Emily's husband took this picture:
















That's my "I just ran 3.1 miles" hair. Nice, isn't it? My husband questioned me on why I received beads. Really, honey...everyone got beads for participating! Really!

It was a great accomplishment. And I'm looking forward to my next one!