The Dinky Little Race ROCKS!

As you all know, I ran the Salt Lake City 5K this past weekend. It was a morning full of fun and excitement. Let me recap.

We (yes we, Tony was such a good husband and woke up with me to come watch) woke up at 5:30am and got ready for the race. I made some muffins the night before so I munched on those as I whipped my hair up in a ponytail and headed out the door. I, luckily, wasn't too tired because I had been practicing going to bed at a decent hour the whole week.

We arrived at the Gateway Mall at about 6:30 and my race started an hour later. Tony came and dropped me off at the trax train that took me to the starting point. It was a little chilly for my taste, but I somehow survived. I was so not looking forward to taking off my comfy sweatpants and giving my "gear bag" to the nice people who were taking it to the finish line for me.

The starting of the race was exciting...for a couple seconds. I had been telling myself all morning that I was going to run just a little harder than I usually do, so I could push myself and get a decent time. The gun went off, and I did just that. I set my pace a little quicker than normal and off I went. I was smiling from ear-to-ear thinking about running in my first official race. Then, one by one, everyone started passing me. I was passed by Spiderman, and other folks who I thought weren't a threat to pass me. I got really discouraged thinking that I was going to be finishing with the walkers at the back of the chute. But I kept my little pace steady and kept my chin up.

Success was mine as we hit State Street. The majority of the 5K was on this street and it was quite uphill. Not horribly uphill, but enough to cause a lot of people to struggle. When I turned the corner and saw the big stretch in front of me I said (out loud) "Thank you, Tony." He made me train on this horrible hill by us and even though I was able to run it easily before the race, I hated running it every time. I was so lucky I had trained on that hill! Sorry, I kind of got off topic there...success was mine was we hit state street....my steady non-sprinting at the start line pace made it so that I, as others stopped and grabbed their aching sides, was able to chug my little way up State Street, easy peasy. No matter that I stopped for a couple seconds after the climb because I wanted to puke...I DID IT.

The rest of the race was downhill from there and there was only about half a mile left, so it was smooth sailing. I picked up the pace quite a bit and made my way to the Gateway Mall and crossed the finish line. What a cool feeling. I was so proud of myself! My goal was to finish in 35 minutes (don't laugh, it was my first time), and I did it in 34:11!

Here are some "pictures" of my finish line cross. They're actually screen shots from the video Tony shot. The video is like 10 minutes long because Tony wasn't sure when I would cross, so I saved you the time and just took screen grabs of my finish :). I've outlined my head with a nice little square so you can see me.

Yeah, I totally beat that girl in the pink. We were battling it out the whole last stretch.

See? Beat her!

Wooo hoo!





#21883, that's me!

I can't tell you how proud I was of myself. Running that race made my weekend. I'm STILL on a high from it! I'm about to go on a run now, and I'm excited about it. I would encourage everyone to do this! It really makes you feel great.

I'm planning on continuing to train and I want to run my next 5K in 30 minutes. I am going to do a couple more 5k's to improve my speed, then I'm moving on to a 10K!