My First Race

On June 4th I ran my first 5K :-O ! That little emoticon dude was pretty much the way my insides felt the entire week leading up to the event. The part of my mind that is sane and reasonable kept saying, "You've run 3 miles before, you can do this. Everything will be fine, your friends and family are going to be proud of you and this is for charity for heaven's sake! Get a grip spaz monkey!" However the illogical part of my brain was screaming "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! What's going to happen? What if I quit? What if it takes me a really long time to finish? What if the other runner's think I look silly? What am I going to wear? What should I eat before hand? What if I get a cramp? What if I get sick? What if I get trapped in a herd of people and can't escape? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!"  It was the italicized side of my thought process that seemed to win over my emotions most often and led me to drive Joe nearly mad with my outbursts of "I'm so NERVOUS" all week long. Bless his heart.

But I survived. I survived and I met my initial goals for this race- 1. No walking and 2. Finish in less than 30 minutes. *(a couple miles in I added 3. Do not vomit. I witnessed several people vomiting around me. Yuck.) I'm taking nothing but great feelings away from this experience. My friend Scott ran with me for the first 2 miles when my nerves were jangling terribly and both helped me navigate the crowds and kept me focused on his hilarious chatter and occasional bursts of songs. For the last 1.1 mile when I was on my own I got discouraged for a second and thought I was gonna stop and walk but I was able to reach inside somewhere and keep going. And, best of all, when I was approaching that finish line I saw my husband smiling at me and heard my friend Mandy cheering me on. I felt euphoric.  Everyone was so positive and encouraging, I didn't feel slow or lame or even average. I felt awesome. And really sweaty.

So my first race is in the books and it won't be my last. After the race was done and over the following day I realized something- I don't care anymore that I'm slower than a bunch of my friends and whoever else. I don't suck, I'm working hard and I'm having a good time. Running is something I literally never thought I could do and I did it! With lots of encouragement from the people around me, I did it. So, let me take a moment to be cheesy and thank Joe, Mandy, Mark and Danielle for being inspirational and really encouraging to a newbie; Scott for being my buddy for this race and my parents for treating me like I'm a rockstar for accomplishing this. Sorry, the cheesiness had to happen. It's my way.

I got up this morning with the eye of the tiger and finally conquered this stupid loop that had been giving me trouble the past couple weeks. Take that stupid loop! Take that dumb small hill that seems real tall! Take that lungs that sometimes wheeze and make me want to quit! Look out green lakes hill that I hate, you're next!