I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to get prepared for my 5K. My nerves were all over the place, and I wanted to go ahead and get breakfast in my stomach so if there were any adverse effects (read: nervous tummy), they would have time to do their thing. LOL. For breakfast, I had my mandarin orange spark, a sandwich thin with a little bit of peanut butter, an Advocare meal replacement shake, and about a 1/3 of a banana. I didn't really think bacon and eggs would sit very well. :) I left the house at 7:15 to head to my friends house that I was running the race with and as soon as I got there, we loaded up and headed to Greenville.
We got to Greenville, signed in, got our bibs and chips on and then waited.........and waited.
Before
Finally, at about 8:55 we started lining up to get started. There were only about 120 or so people running and there was also a 1 mile fun run/walk that started a little later.
So, we heard the on your mark, blah blah blah (I honestly don't know what they said, I just knew when to go!). I pushed start on my heart rate monitor and off we went. Lynn, Emily and I stayed together for the first probably tenth of a mile and we told Lynn to go.....and that, she did!! She wanted an under 40 minute 5K and Emily and I were hoping for 45. When we stopped running to catch our breath and walk, I looked at the time on my HRM and we had run for 3:15. What is funny is that when I was doing my C25K training runs, in week 4, you have to run for 3 minutes and I NEVER could get it! Funny how running is such a mental game....with YOURSELF, and only yourself!
Emily and I both started getting some shin and calf pains, but we pushed through and would run when we could and walk when we felt we couldn't run anymore, and the only time we stopped was to stretch on a curb. We were told there was a water station at Mile 2 and when we hit that we started getting really excited. But then when we rounded a couple more corners, we saw the Mile 2 sign and that mentally through me off, because I thought we were already there and that we only had 1.1 miles left of the race.
After the shin and calf pain subsided, our feet started bothering us. The bottom of my right foot was burning and Emily's right heel was bothering her, but we kept going. Then the dreaded hip flexor issues started up all the way until the finish line. We walked a lot more the last mile than we wanted to and when we rounded the corner and could see the finish line we started running. We completed the race in 45:47. Sooo close to our goal, but not quite. You have to start somewhere though, right? And we can only go up from here! Lynn completed hers in 36:16 and set a new PR!
We have seen the finish line!!
We did it!!
After! Hot sweaty messes! :)
I am so incredibly proud of all of us and so thankful for the ability to be able to do these races, even though this was my very first one. There were so many times during the race where I wanted to burst out crying. The fact that Emily told me she wasn't going to leave me and then when we would round several corners and there would be people cheering us on! It was so moving and touching, and, lets just be honest, I am a big ol' baby! I checked my heart rate monitor at the end of the race and it said I had burned like 570 calories. My heart rate never went below like 155-160 and that was just from walking. It was in the 170s most of the time, which I was kind of concerned about. But it was HOT!!!
Out of 14 people aged 20-29, I was second to last. I was also looking at the 50 and up age group results and EVERY.SINGLE.ONE was faster than me. That kinda puts things into perspective for me and shows me how much work I have to do to get better at this.
There is already talk of an Electric Run and a 10K in September and October.....eeek!!!! And I have been invited to start running with a group of women on Saturday mornings. We shall see!
I hope y'all had a good weekend. I am incredibly sore today and have been alternation ibuprofen and tylenol most of the weekend. I was hoping to be able to go for a walk sometime today, but with the torrential downpour that is going on right now and is supposed to go on all day, that isn't going to happen. And, I can't get to my treadmill on account of all the flooring that is laying in front of it. I will figure something out! Happy Monday y'all!
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