I’ll admit it.  I didn’t want to go  to my first 5K yesterday morning.  The day before my heel was hurting.  I was extremely tired when I awoke, which isn’t normal, but this feeling might have been due to the 1000 people who were going to be in attendance.  It’s was also only a 3 mile run.  Three miles is what I run for my training plan on a regular basis.  Paying to run 3 miles with a ton of people didn’t sound appealing.

You know what else wasn’t appealing?  Being a quitter.  Thankfully the other part of me kept telling the quitter to suck it up and go.  Yes, it was only three miles.  However, I’ve been training to run the entire three miles without walking.  I’ve rushed to fit in a run when there was barely enough time.  I’ve run through traffic, waited at too many red lights, and put up with cold mornings to pay to run three miles with strangers.  Plus, if I quit I’d feel like crap the rest of the weekend and probably not follow through with the 10K in February.

Waiting in the car to stay warm before race start.

We arrived at the race an hour early so we could park and check-in.  Dave was super supportive.  He asked the dumb questions for me, like, is there a racer’s meeting?  We mountain bike.  There’s always a racers meeting at MTB races.  Apparently not at running events because the race director looked at us funny.  But because Dave asked the “dumb” question I new exactly which way to go and which way to face at the start line.  While we were told it would be obvious, it wasn’t.  5K’s went one direction while everyone else faced the opposite direction.  A lot of people didn’t know which way to face, or start, so I helped anyone who asked me.

It’s in my nature to want to help everyone.  I am my mother’s daughter.  But I’m dating Dave who only helps when asked directly most of the time.  Striking a balance is best.  You help those who clearly need assistance, but don’t get so involved that you end up losing your own experience.  So I stood by and watched the confusion, figuring the people in charge would get it sorted out.  And they did.  Yay, them.

Then the gun went off.  I just focused on my pace and my run.  I was there to finish  under 12 minutes per mile, without walking, which I did.   I ended up running my best time lately – 11.09 minutes per mile, which puts me  back on track to the 10 mile per hour pace I ran last year.

It felt great to achieve my goal.  If I hadn’t paid for a 5K I probably would have kept walking occasionally during my three mile training runs.  Now I know I can go the entire distance at a faster pace with no stops.

Thanks to Dave for supporting me as usual, and for taking photos.  Most of his photos will not be posted though.  Turns out I look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon when I run.