Iron Girl 2011

I know you are probably thinking-Wow 2 blogs in 1 day! What up with that?  Well, it just so happens that I went to dinner with my parents and drank about a gallon of Diet Coke! mmmmmm I heart it! One day I will blog about it :) Anyway, by my calculations, all that caffeine will have me awake until, say, Tuesday or so :)  Sooooo, I thought I would take some time to share with you my latest accomplishment.

I have a degree to teach.  I have a license to do hair.  School is my thing.  I can do it.  Always could.  Sports, however, is a different story.  I have never been particularly athletic.  I played soccer in high school where I kept the bench warm the first few years.  And I usually join a gym (and never go) every once in a while.  This is the extent of my athletic career.....until the beginning of March.  

At school I have a friend.  We will call her LP.  LP does the running and gym thing often.  She mentioned to me, probably in jest 1 day that I should run this 5k race with her coming up in Clearwater.  Maybe she thought I was a runner, or maybe she was giving me a subtle hint, I dont know.  Anyway, I kindly told her no thanks because the only time I would run was if someone was chasing me!  We laughed and I went on about my life.  Except I had this nagging feeling.  For days I questioned myself.  Can I do it?  Am I too afraid to try?  What would be required of me?  So I set out to find out.  I decided that it had been way too log since I had done something out of my comfort zone.  A challenge was just what I needed to test myself.  I decided to sign up.  

I only had a few weeks to train.  I wasn't trying to beat any records or win 1st place, I just wanted to do my personal best.  The 1st week was great.  Training went well, I was eating well and feeling great.  I had all kinds of motivation.  Week 2 brought daily monsoons to good ole Land O Lakes.  Bad weather, friends.  Tornadoes, power outages, school bus delays-bad, bad weather.  During that rainy week while everything else was rinsed away, so was my steam :( So the last week of training was more like a week of resting up :)

The big day arrived! I was not nervous.  I knew that all I could do was to give it my best.  My 1 hope-I truly hope and pray that I do not come in dead last.  That would be too embarrassing.  Not to mention LP would prob laugh at me :) Anyway, it was dark until right before we took off.  At 7:00, the 1/2 marathon began.  Now those ladies are hard core for sure! Alas. 7:15am Sun. April 11.  It was my turn!!!! The energy at the starting line was electric. I was hoping for a gun shot to signal go, but we settled for the announcer on the mic.  Mark. Set, Go! Off we went.  I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with LP and another friend of the day Primo.  But I also didn't expect them to tear off the start line like it was the 50 yard dash, but they did.  I was on my own.  For the 1st 1/2 mile, I worked on finding a good pace.  It was still crowded at that point too, so only a few were out ahead.  Shortly after that we saw the 1 mile mark.  WOW! I was 1/3 of the way finished with this race and I was still running at a pretty nice pace. At this point, I made a conscious effort to steady my breathing.  I could see up ahead was the turnaround point which would mark the 1/2 way point.  Happiness!!! I still felt okay.  It was during this leg of the race that I began to start getting weak.  We were close to 1.5 mi and I wanted to stop and walk.  You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.  I began chanting to myself.  I blocked every other thought out of my head except these words.  And guess what..it worked!  Another 1/2 mile down (we are at 2mi now) And here is where we I ran into a small technical difficulty.  Okay so picture this.  1.2 miles to go.  Middle of the course on the side of the road.  Breathing steady.  Positive self talk going on.  What could go wrong now?  Remember this song "When youre slidin into first......._________!
Yes.  Okay.  So needless to say my jog immediately slows into a walk.  What the heck?  It came out of nowhere!  And I already have serious public bathroom issues/anxieties.  Okay.  I can handle this.  The feeling subsides after a bit of walking.  So I am still in a race and I want to run again.  Not so fast!  I played this walk-or else game with my body until close to the end of the race.  I was back to jogging by the last 1/2 mi and actually sprinted to the finish line!  Holy Cow! I did it!  I ran a 5K!  I was and still am super proud of myself.  


The rest of the morning was great too. They served us this delish and healthy meal of breakfast burritos, muffins, yogurt, banana and juice.  Then we shopped around at little booths.  Close to 10am we were ready to head out, still on a high from our fab morning.  I went home and showered and took a little nap before my family got home from church.  Then I gave them all the play by play of the day!
Check out all my Race Bling.

And my race number.  Pinned to my shirt, it made me feel so official! :)  (Its the little things for me remember)

And the look on my face....

Thanks to LP and Primo for the invite and the encouragement!  I am looking forward to more racing.  This was a blast!  Strong and healthy is how I want to live.  Hopefully this is my 1st step!
Thanks,
KBO