5 Kilometers!

I DID IT!

"I did it!"

I couldn't stop repeating "I did it!" this morning and jumping back and forth, to which Jarrod said "You have too much energy." haha. 

But I did it! I completed my first 5k this morning like I hoped to! And I even finished in under an hour, which I did not expect. That's amazing and makes me very happy. Jarrod stayed with me the whole way, and my finish time was 55 minutes 54 seconds, his was 1 second after that. 

It was a cool morning with a LOT of fog and I think that made for a great turnout; many, many people showed up. They have been doing this pre-fair event for 18 years now, but I believe this is the first year with a 5k. I'm sure they'll keep it, because I would guess that more people did the 5k than the other option, which was a 5-mile course. They said it was the first year they've ever seen people show up in long sleeves, it was that chilly for August. (However, I don't know how you could do this in long sleeves... once you're moving you're much warmer and sweating.)

According to the race results, I was 144th out of 158, which is partially a lie. There were many more people doing the 5k than that; there must have been many of them that did not have bibs to track their time. Also, my pace was 18 minutes per mile, which means that on average we were walking over 3 mph, which I'm impressed with. We jogged for a couple chunks of the course on some of the flat parts, and I was surprised at how much those small jogging sessions didn't wear me down. I mean, I know a lot of my limits breathing-wise, so I could gauge when to slow back down to make sure I wasn't dragging or exhausted the rest of the time.

Photo from emissourian.com of us
approaching the finish line.

But it was great! Although, I can't say it was exactly easy. I was breathing heavily for probably 1/2 to 2/3 of it, and the final half mile or so was difficult. As we neared the finish line, which was an uphill incline, we heard the announcer say that it was still 55 minutes, and then we were like 'Hey, it's not even an hour yet! Okay, let's finish!' So we picked up the pace a little bit. When we finished, most people were still there, grabbing food or drinks and watching the rest of the runners/walkers come in. And even though most of these people didn't know me, and didn't know what a big deal this is for me, and didn't know that I was doing this with one-third of my lungs working, some of them were cheering us on or just taking a moment to look our way and smile or give a thumbs up, small gestures to say "Way to go, good job!" 

Because no matter who you are, I feel everyone who runs and participates in these understands that everyone has to start somewhere, and it doesn't matter whether you're first or last, what matters is you tried and Good-job-to-you because you finished too!