Day 42 - 41 days to go: MY FIRST 5K!!

My first race!

 It was the Hillsdale Rover & Clover 5K

Oh it was so much fun.  The crowd, the beautiful day, meeting up with my friend Nicole (a million thanks Nicole for urging me to run this one!) -  and all the doggies.

Now there's a couple of funny things of note.  First of all, we were running with the dogs.  Literally.  Although there were a few people super serious about the race, it was all and all a friendly day.  People running with their kids and dogs.  It was a perfect first race.  I wasn't the fastest, I'm pretty sure there were times where kids in flip flops walking three legged dogs were going faster but I wasn't the slowest either.  There was definitely somewhere around the 2 mile mark where I started to pass up a lot of people who decided to walk - including many skinny teen girls.  It made me feel pretty empowered.

Running time:  40:57 which was actually, surprisingly not too bad.  I had a few snafu's (the tweaked ankle and not being able to sleep at all last night.)  I'm pretty sure if I had a little extra sleep, and a perfect ankle my time would've been better but I'm still so happy --  and it was hilly!  I mean, I guess a town called "HILLSdale" should've been a tip off.  They probably didn't name it that based on being particularly flat.  But you know me, I love a good challenge and nothing is more challenging than having to reach a finish line running up hill!

Towards the end, I actually started to get choked up - I was accomplishing this!  It was the last .10th of a mile or something and U2's Beautiful Day came on my I-POD and it was indeed a beautiful day.  I silently prayed to the running Gods to let me hold it together, I mean it was the Rover and Clover for the love of God, not the f'ing NY marathon, 3 miles is nothing to sneeze over but it's nothing to cry about either.  Luckily, I held it together and made it through like a pro.

Today's finish line really is just the beginning.  I'm hooked.

XO
Jen