A few weeks ago, I got up the nerve to sign up for a 5K run here in town, sponsored by Chris' work. I've been running off and on for the past few months and thought, what the heck, and took the plunge. It gave me an incentive to keep pushing myself when I ran. Mind you, though, I haven't run 3.1 miles all at once for, oh, over 16 years!! So my hope was to 1. finish and 2. as long as I was finishing, try to make it under 35 minutes. (Well, in my head, I really wanted to do it in under 30 minutes, but thought there would be no. way. that was going to happen!) So, in true cross-country training (yes, I use that word loosely here, ha) fashion, I carb-loaded the night before. We got to the race start area 20 minutes prior to start time and I was a bundle of nerves, starting to second-guess what the heck I was doing to myself after such a long hiatus from running races. But I sucked it up, got in line with my two favorite guys cheering me on from the sidelines, and ran. And ran. And ran. Thank God for my iPod because my songs really gave me a good boost and kept my pace up. I actually did a lot better than I thought I would, finishing in just under 29 minutes!! Yep, people, 2-9! Though according to the "official" race time, I finished at 29:01, but that's absolutely not true and I'll show you in pictures later in the post. I was even able to push a little faster at the end, almost passing a young boy, but when he noticed me next to him, he sprinted to the finish line and there was no way I was going to embarrass myself by trying to elbow out a kid at the finish! And he came in 3rd place for his age division...yeah, him! I was no where close to being at the top of my age division, but again, my goal was to finish. Which I did. But I couldn't have done it without my fan club of two:
pre-race
You can see Boo right through the finish line cheering for me and Chris is standing just behind him. And there's my head, between the guy in the gray shirt and the kid in dark blue.
Notice the time here. There is no. way. it took me 3 more seconds to cross the finish line! Plus, I was a little farther back at the start, so didn't really "start" the race when the gun went off. That's why I'm sticking with what my watch said at 28:56!!
After the race and snacks/hot chocolate that they gave us, we went over to the Expo for Chris' work which was part of the weekend events. Boo got to see and touch some fish that Daddy helped collect from streams two days before. He wasn't too sure at first, but after a while, really got excited about them.
"Uh, I'm not so sure about this..."
"I guess touching it with one finger won't be too bad."
"And this dead one won't hurt me."
"Aaaah, here's a little baby one!"
Head-first into the tub filled with the big, dead fish!
He wanted to touch a big one that wasn't moving. :)
All in all, a good weekend.
Just one request from you, readers: what songs motivate you and keep you running??
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