My first 5k...

In February, after being on a month long "sabbatical" I was trying to think of ways to encourage and motivate myself to get in shape and lose weight (refer back to "Not Resolutions" post on January 5th). After looking around at different programs and gyms in the area I ended up finding a website listing all of the running races for 2009 held in Virginia. I then proceeded to sign both Mike and myself up for the GW Parkway Classic 5k. I was so motivated. I even found a training program called Couch to 5k that I knew I could do in order to be successful. For the 2 weeks following sign up I trained diligently. I did most of this training on a treadmill rather than outside because of the cruddy weather. By this point I had even enlisted my sister to run - which was shocking because she's not a runner either. It was about the 3rd week that things started getting difficult. ----- For those of you who don't know me ----- I'm a 2 week girl, meaning I always start something but rarely carry through past 2 weeks...... this goes back even before college, every diet I've tried, every workout I've attempted - 2 weeks then :( Mike was very sweet, he'd go out on his runs and invite me, but I'd always have an excuse. Mainly my excuses were the previous broken bones in my foot or my plantar fascitis, or when I got my stomach bug in early April, which were true to some extent, but no reason to stop training entirely.

I can honestly say that for the last 2 months I've done nothing. I've eaten relatively healthy but besides that I have worked out a maximum of twice a week in increments of 30 minutes. Before I knew it, April 25th was here and my parents were parking the car on Columbus Street, unloading their suitcase, anxiously waiting to cheer Mike, Lauren and I on. Over the last couple of weeks I had talked to my sister, but didn't think she had done much to train for the race. Even by Monday I had talked myself down to merely walking the race, hoping to finish under 45 minutes.

Saturday after my parents arrived and unpacked, Mike, Lauren and I walked down to Pacers to pickup our race packets. And, like anyone who was running a race the next day would do, we went to Hard Times for lunch, where I enjoyed a delicious and nutritious hot dog smothered in chili and cheese - I'm a moron. Oh, but the fun didn't stop there, for dinner we feasted on some real race food - Ledo's pizza - did I'm mention I'm a moron. Fortunately, for fear that I'd have to stop along the race to handle some bathroom business, I didn't eat or drink anything but water for the rest of the night. When we got home, we all set out our outfits that we would wear for the race and headed to bed around 11pm, after a friendly game of Smarty Party with my parents.

Sunday morning came all too soon, as we woke up at 5:30am and started to get ready. The weather forecast said it would reach the mid 80's by noon, so I was oh-so thrilled to have chosen this race. Mike, Lauren and I headed down to the 200 block of Fairfax street to hop on the buses that took us down to the race start, as we boarded the bus, I became more than nervous. Why did I sign up for this stupid race, why did I not train, why am I so lazy? It only added to the nervousness to see the tons of athletic people surrounding me in the parking lot of the park near the race start. Oh, and we got there so early we had to wait nearly an hour before the race would even begin.....fabulous. Everyone around me seemed so enthusiastic to be there, so confident that they were going to do their best to complete the 3.1 miles. As the race start neared, a voice came over the loud speaker to introduce a guy from a local gym who would lead us in our pre-race warm-up. His son, 6 years old, was by his side. We marched in place, did some jumping jacks, stretched our legs and arms, and were just about ready to start.

As the 3 of us, and 1000 others headed to the start line, I told Mike - "Okay, my goal is to finish, and not to be last." He offered, for about the 3rd time, to run with me. Absolutely not - he had actually somewhat trained for this, he had a personal goal of finishing in 27 minutes. "I'll be fine" I said, and the race bell sounded.

Everyone took off running, and as they rounded the cones to head north to continue the race, I couldn't run any more. My body was already tired, I could barely breath. There they all went. At about the 1 mile mark I had about 30 people behind me, the time on the clock read 14 minutes and 20 seconds. My heart sank.....in my head all I could think was, how did I let it get this bad? As I got to Williams Sonoma I was thinking I may not make it to the end. At this point I could feel, what I thought was a huge blister forming on the entire outer portion of my right foot. I got to the 2 mile marker which read 33 minutes. As I glanced back, the number of people behind me had dwindled to maybe 15. As I rounded the corner of Union Street, in the distance I could see crowds of people at the end of the 3 mile mark. Up until this point, there weren't many people along the race route, nobody there to cheer you on....which at minute 33 on mile 2 I was thankful for. As I ran passed some onlookers I began to feel as if I would never make it to the end, and then, at the worst possible time, I felt the need to go the the bathroom. Starbucks, couldn't come soon enough, and as I entered, I didn't even give the employees a chance to tell me I couldn't use their bathroom, I just headed straight in. After that I headed back out to the race, at which point the first of the 10 mile runners was passing me....people cheering him on, looking at me yelling "You're almost done...you can do it". I was so embarrassed, I didn't even know if there were any other 5k racers left. When I got about 2 blocks from the finish I heard people screaming "GO Sarah !!!!!" and as I looked up I saw, Mike, my dad, mom, sister, Alana & Kristen. I headed over toward them and didn't want to finish the race, all I wanted to do was head to my car and hide the rest of the day. But Mike came over, consoled my broken ego for a minute and walked the rest of the way with me to the finish. My official time was 1 hour, 1 minute and 56 seconds.

I know this is already a long post, but for my own records, I'm going to say a little more.

I finished #1044 of 1047 5k racers. Of those that finished before me included the following:

367-30 to 39 year olds

185-40 to 49 year olds

81-50 to 59 year olds

22-60 to 69 year olds

6-80 to 89 year olds (one 89 who finished #336 of 1047 racers)

and 44 10 mile runners

Mike's time was 27 minutes 25 seconds, making him #182 of 1047 and Lauren's time was 48 minutes 50 seconds, making her #1000 of 1047. Congrats to both of them.

How humbling ...

Never again ...

So to go back to my short term goals for 2009, an amendment to my "Run a 5k" is "RUN a 5k, in 36 minutes." So I have a lot of work to do between now and December 31st.

Thank you to my parents who drove from Roanoke to see me "compete". And thanks to Alana and Kristen for waking up on a Sunday morning to cheer us on. We really did appreciate it.