Hooray for another 5K! PR post

Well, as many of you guys recommended nothing beats the marathon blues better than getting hammered on cheap tequila another race!

Luckily, I had another one on the books - a 5K with my husband (his first!) after he decided to start to get into shape and gave me the best mother's day ever by saying he'd sign up for one.

The day started off pretty good - My sister-in-law stayed the night so she could be here first thing in the morning to watch our 3 1/2 year old while Momma and Dadda ran.

We were a little frazzled trying to get out. I could tell Marty was nervous he seemed a little edgy and when we got out of the car I noticed he put his shorts on backwards! (teehee)

He ran off to the boys room to get the shorts right and I quickly found our friend Amanda.

She and her family recently moved here from Texas and we've become friends. She mentioned to me a while back that she wanted to run a 5K someday so when we signed up for this I enlisted her too. She's a natural at this running thing and finished in a very impressive 27:45 (8:56 mi.) Wow!

Amanda and Marty - (shorts fixed)

We grabbed our bibs and some water and made our way to the start line. The horn sounded and we were off. I was running like the wind. In the back of my mind a voice was saying "slow down, save some for later" but the other part of my mind was giving the "slow down" part the finger and I put the pedal to the medal. 

It was a tight path and it was tough to get thru the throngs of people. It was a smaller, local race and it wasn't the easiest to maneuver but I did the best I could and aside from cramped quarters - this is the park I do all my long runs in and its beautiful.

As I'm running I feel like I'm working hard but I'm pretty nervous that I'm not going to beat my previous time of 10:19. (That 10:19 felt fast to me) My last few runs (even the short ones) have come in at over 11 min. miles and I don't have much confidence until we near the one mile mark. There was no clock but a woman yelling out times… Wait Wha!? Did she just say "9:18" at the one mile mark!? No f'in way. Oh it is on. 

It's not easy but this is what we train for. This is the time to show up. So I kept plugging. And telling myself to "suck it up" and found a comfortable mantra in: Your mind is strong and your body capable. I thought of all my bloggy friends cheering me on and I just kept moving. 

And here's how it worked out:

Jennifer Roe 38F 30:01.72  9:39 63/143 F30-39:15/31 50.37 

Woohooooo!! 9:39! I didn't think it was possible from me. 

I am so fricken happy to see that. and I was 2 seconds away from 

being under 30 mins. 

Damn. I'm putting that on the to do list for next time! :)

As I wiped the sweat away and tried not to pass out from the effort, 

I remembered that Marty was on the way. So I excitedly waited for him.

Yay! Go Marty. (Yes my camera sucks)

I was so happy to see him. He ran it in 35:22 which is awesome for his first race. My first race? 40:57 at a 13:12 pace!

Then to make things even sweeter, we decided to stick around for the raffle and to see the winners. Well, wouldn't you know it, out of 360 runners - my husband won the freakin raffle! We never win anything. This was as exciting as winning the lottery and I drew a ton of stares with my hooting and hollering for Marty - he won $120 gift certificate to my FAVORITE running store - Road Runner!

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

So all in all it was a fabulous day of running and a great Father's Day to boot.

A family that runs together :)

I hope you all had a lovely day - now on to figuring out the next race!

XO

Jen