5K #1

Well, I ran it! And I didn't die. Good news, no?

But I ran up the hill towards the temple because it's ridiculously steep and I'm a little bitter that it was even part of the course. My achilles tendons JUST stopped aching today.

Somehow I need to keep running because I have another one on Monday morning. Brian is currently on the European shift (2-10AM) so I'm going to have to recruit the neighbors to come listen for when Alan starts crying so he can stay asleep.

Somehow he is going to run said Monday-morning-race with me. He totally procrastinated getting ready for it and now he's not only unprepared, but will be totally sleep-deprived. We are going to make quite the pair. If we wind up sticking together the whole race it will be awesome if we don't run into each other because we're running with our eyes closed.

Back to last Saturday. The race was totally worth it. It was perfect weather, I passed tons of people (which is why I started in the back - it made me feel really good about myself), and I finished at 36:58, making an 11:56 pace. I am totally satisfied with this. I've had to take a lot of breaks in training due to ankle issues, sleep deprivation and laziness. In April I was running 15 minute paces, so this is fantastic, IMO. Maybe if I hadn't walked up the hill that only crazy people ran up I would have done better. Or maybe I would have passed out into the water station. Who knows?

And to my Brother-In-Laws who are running a marathon in August, don't even ask. I will not be joining you. Three miles was plenty for me, thankyouverymuch. Maybe next year I will do a 10K, but don't hold your breath for that either.

At the very end of the race, I could see the balloon arch at the finish as I entered the final, forever-long stretch. I wanted so badly to walk again. I was a little discouraged by the half-marathon-ers passing me in their 4-minute mile pace. But then I thought of my little Sean and how he'd been asking me "you going running, mom?" every time I left the house without him. He was starting to ask if he could come with me. I couldn't make myself look like a liar in his eyes - I had to finish running. I didn't know where in the final stretch they would be, but there was no way he was going to see me walk. Even though he's three and only really cared about drinking my chocolate milk and eating my french toast afterward, he saw me do a hard thing. And that is what I wanted for him - to know that mom won't take the easy way out when it comes to hard things.