Saturday was finally the day of the 5k. The two weeks before the 5k were supposed to be dedicated to running, but with 90 degree weather that didn't work out well and my friend and I only ran a few times, leaving me feeling pretty nervous and unprepared. I kept questioning whether or not I was really capable of running a 3.1 mile race 3 months after having a baby.
The day of the race was here! I woke up early and took a warm bath to try to loosen up my calves (they were sore from running the day before, which I shouldn't have done). The bath seemed to help a lot. I then ate a small breakfast and put on my workout clothes. The night beforehand my friend and I decided that we should go and get some fun new workout clothes, so we did. My thought was that my awesome new clothes might just distract everyone from noticing how out of shape I was :). Before we went shopping I decided that I wanted a shirt that was the color of a tennis ball and some shorts, and that's just what I got. My brother (and parents) were visiting from Bemidji and my brother had agreed to do the 5k with me, so my brother, Mac, and I got into the car and headed to the 5k. We got to the St. Francis High School where the 5k started and registered. Last years shirts were tan and not very attractive at all. This years shirts were burnt orange (one of my least favorite colors) with blue and green font.... very, very ugly. This was a bummer considering that at least 10% of the reason I was doing the 5k was for the shirt. I wonder how many 5k's I will have to run before I can get a nice looking shirt?
The whistle blew and we were off! My friend and I intended on running together but once we started things were changed up a bit. My friend ended up running with Mac since they were both a bit faster (7 minutes to be exact) and my brother stuck with me. He ended up being the least encouraging running partner ever. He kept telling me how slow I was going and even stopped to point out that my jogging was as fast as his walking pace. It ended up being pretty great though because I don't get to spend much time with him and after he got all of the discouraging words he could think of out of his head we were able to have some good, deep conversation, which I wasn't expecting.
41 minutes after the whistle blew I crossed the finish line and finished the 5k without walking. My time is pretty slow but my only goal was to jog the entire way and I did it! I really love the feeling after finishing a race, even though I was super slow I felt like I could do anything after that. The world was my oyster the moment after crossing that finish line.
Now to my next goal. Before the end of the year is up I would like to run a 10k (6.2 miles), again with the only goal being that I would jog the entire time. I am going to look at the different options for this soon and I'll update when I choose one.
Okay, first of all the shirts were GOLD last year, not tan you silly goose! And I think I could have been a lot more discouraging had I tried harder. :) And I didn't know you took a bath that morning! Crazy.
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