Second Chance Missions 5K

I know this blog is way overdue!  Blame it on work, school, children, family, life - whatever.  I'm so busy I can't breathe!  Here's to summer and (hopefully) relaxation!!



It all started back in January.  We had just moved and I was now taking both girls to school.  It was and still is a TON of running around.  I also had an extremely demanding class in school the first half of the semester.  Trying to save gas, miles and especially time I figured I would drop Hannah off at school and go right to the library to study 3 days a week and do all of my school work while she was in school.  It turns out that the library didn't open until 10 so I had an hour to kill if I wanted to make that plan work.  So I decided to finally use that gym membership that I quit using when I went to the beach back in August in between drop off and library time.  I would drop Hannah off at school, get in a small workout, shower and hit the books until noon.  I started off doing the elliptical three times a week - no weights, no treadmill.  Just a quick workout to fill in the time to get to the library.

It all changed when I texted my sister about something workout related and she asked if I wanted to run in a 5K to support her church's mission trip this summer.  Sure. Why not.  I've wanted to run one before and this gave me a goal and some accountability to get it done since we would run it together. I kept with the elliptical for 2 more weeks before beginning with the Couch to 5K program, a 9 week program for new runners that take them from literally never running before to running 30 minutes non-stop (the average time for a 5K).  It was hard, both physically and mentally but I finished.  I never missed a run or repeated days/weeks.  I was my own rock star.  I finished and had two weeks to continue training for the race.  I was slow, running way under the average pace but I was running up to 45 minutes at at time.  (If you're interested, I recapped every week about the challenges and triumphs).  Oh, and about a month or so before the race day my sister tells me she's not running the race - say what??  She was expecting again and wasn't going to take any chances.  She tells me her husband is going to run and I can run with him.  Not the same, but at least I'm not alone!

So race day was here, 11 weeks of training came down to this day.  I tried not to get nervous reminding myself that this wasn't something I wasn't ready for, I had done it twice already so I just needed to treat it as my regular workout - only I was doing it with a bunch of other people and on a Saturday.  I was nervous and excited but more than anything I was just ready to get it started.  Once I started I knew I would be OK.  I had been pre-warned not to get tied up in all of the excitement and hype of everyone starting fast or I would gas out fast.  I found a spot in the middle of the pack of about 75 runners.  We prayed.  We started.  I can't even remember if there was a gun or timer or what that told us to go, but off we were! I tried to hold back on my speed heeding the warning given to me.  Everyone took off; I told my brother-in-law to go ahead, not to let me hold him back.  So I'm running alone. Depsite trying not to run too fast, I realized about a 1/4 mile in that I still had started too fast, I was out of breath already.  I had to slow down just to catch my breath. Then I realized I forgot to turn on the timer on my iPod so if I got discouraged and tired I could check the timer to see how much time was left and how far I had gone. I managed to get it started, even if it was off a bit. I'm thinking to myself running on the road is a lot harder than the treadmill but I enjoy running outside way more than the treadmill.  It's easier to see how far I've come and how much I have left.  I tried starting my running list - I didn't turn it on when we started in case the BIL and I ran together.  That was a challenging task - trying to turn on your iPod that is in an armband on your arm and you're running, I ended up shutting off the timer on accident trying to get the music started.

The course is pretty easy and if anyone is familiar with the village in Cartersville that is basically where we ran.  We started at the Ruritan Club, rounded the corner to head towards the "town", veered left into the village, made a sharp turn to go towards the bridge which happened to be down a steep hill.  I had to really watch my footing to make sure I didn't trip and to help me slow down.  We crossed the bridge and turned around and came back.  I almost missed the next turn but saw the guys motioning for me and the chalk on the ground with the arrow (phew!) but man, this part of the course was pure torture!!  I wanted to get a picture of it when I left but didn't get the chance - I will though.  We turned up a gravel road to head towards the golf course and this hill wasn't your average hill.  It was steep and it was long.  I tried to "run" it as long as I could but didn't make it far.  My fitbit told me later it was the equivalent of 14 stories high.  And it was steep - did I mention that? The grade was unbelievable.  It felt like a 45 degree angle. So I survived that, turned, came back down behind Spanky's and back onto 45 to go back to the Ruritan club.  I was doing pretty good, even when it got mentally hard, I was able to overcome it with the adrenaline of just being there.  When I knew I was close to finishing, I walked one more quick spot for about 30-45 seconds to get over a small bump in the road and then decided I would gun it at the end but.... the end was a bit farther than I was planning on and I literally thought I might throw up.  I slowed a bit until I got closer and hit it hard again, up the final hill to the finish line.  43:05 was the final time.  I finished 2 minutes faster than I had in the past.  (Brian - the BIL - finished in 33 minutes I think).

It was sooo much fun!! Once I recovered it was fun cheering the rest of the people in (I wasn't last!!) and having others encourage you and you do the same.  There was definitely that high of finishing and knowing that I DID IT.  11 weeks of training and wanting to quit paid off.  Weeks of shin splints, hip pain, back pain, ice packs, and motrin paid off.  I came in 3rd place in my age group, Brian came in second place.  To be honest, there were only 3 women in my age group, but I'm not gonna let that stop me from sharing with everyone that I won a medal.  I wouldn't have gotten the medal had I not finished the race!  The overall winner was a male in the the 50's age category who came in at 22 minutes and some change.  WOW!!

I cant' wait to run the next one.  I had plans to run one May 20th but I may have to bow out of that one due to an injury (blog to come).  And I had to nix the run I was asked to do yesterday for the same reason.  BUMMER.  But I do have plans to run more and keep those as motivators.  I just wish I had a group of friends (or just one) to really train with and to push me and motivate me.  To have someone there at the race is definitely helpful as a motivator.  I don't think I could do a race without anyone else there. But I'm super proud of myself and can't believe I did it.  I would encourage anyone who wants to run a 5K to do the C25K program and to sign up for a race as soon as they can!  It was an awesome and amazing experience!!

**My camera died as soon as we got to the race so my sister took some pictures with her camera.  I got prints at Wal-Mart but forgot to get a disc so these are pictures of pictures, sorry** 

Hannah, me, Brian and Thomas at the Start/Finish line AFTER the race!

A really bad picture of me, but I did finish.  My sister missed the pic of me running through the finish line with my arms held high, so this is me walking AFTER I ran through :)

Brian and I with our medals!

Third place, females 20-29