Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The beginning of a beautiful friendship...

with RUNNING! I know it sounds crazy but I have found something I love to do and it all started with this race. So I started the Couch to 5K (C25K) back in december not knowing if I could complete it, but with 1 week to spare on the training I did it! The program is a 9 week program and I did my 5K on week 8. It was awesome! I have not had a chance to upload pictures yet, but will do that soon. Below is my day...

Groundhog 5/10K Run-Kansas City.

The weekend started out great. My wonderful friend Suzy picked me up and we headed to Kansas City. We made a stop at the Nike and Adidas store at the Legends Mall and to the surprise of Matt I didn't buy anything :) We headed to Russ and Jamie's house to pick up our packets and a few hours later were still there! It was great to meet both of them and hear their amazing weight loss stories. I am so happy to have 2 more friends to share memories with. We went to Suzy's friends' house for dinner and sleep time. Suzy was very excited and I kinda felt bad because I typically keep everything inside so I might have not seemed as nervous or excited as I actually was. We went to sleep after figuring out what to wear (yes we contemplated for about an hour what we would wear to the race, haha) and then it was a restless night of sleep. I was more nervous than I thought and kept having crazy dreams about going the wrong way and all that fun stuff.

Well 6am rolled around and I was up and ready to head to the tunnels...yes tunnels. The whole race was underground! We headed back to Russ and Jamie's house for breakfast and more race talk and then headed to the race. The closer we got the more nervous I was.

Once we were there we ran into Scott another member of Thunder Road Racing, which you should check out the blog, it's awesome! So anyways, I was beginning to get nervous but as usually I didn't show it. I don't know why I keep my excitement and nervousness inside but I do. Suzy and I headed to the starting line and it hit me, the excitement, the nervousness and the fear. I was so afraid I was going to let Suzy down, and myself down. Well we lined up, sang the national anthem (which gave me major goosebumps) and then we were off!

I had a time goal of under 30:00min. Getting out of the start was a little tricky trying to find some room to run, but I finally found my open spot and got my pace going. Mile 1 right on track with a little time to spare. It is heating up down in the tunnels especially since I was used to running outside in below 30 degrees! So mile 2 I slowed down a bit to try and make sure I had the energy to kick it in mile 3...well that didn't happen. My pace was not too much off my time but I had a little snag...we got to the last turn down towards the home stretch and the volunteer said we had a mile left, so I checked my watch...dang it I wasn't going to make my time! I was so discouraged and I hit a brick wall. Next thing I see is a girl puking and that just made my stomach turn...another brick wall. So anyways, I start to kick it in thinking I still have some time and then I look around the corner and there it was....the finish line! The girl told us wrong and I was so mad. Had I know it was only a half mile and not a mile I would have started speeding up then instead of coasting through. Oh well, lesson learned.

Final cross the finish line at 30:24! Dang you 24 seconds! I will get you next time. I am super happy with my time though. I ran the whole thing, non-stop and there is NO WAY I would have been able to do that 8 weeks ago. I was 52/179 in my age group. I can't thank Suzy enough for the inspiration and the ability to meet some wonderful new friends. I can't wait for the next races and to be apart of such a wonderful group of people!

Next up...St. Patty's Day 10K, Lincoln, NE half marathon, and Chicago Full marathon! And some small races in between. I love this new friendship I have made!!!

3 comments:

Adrienne said...

Congrats!!! Can't wait to see pics from the race!

SCOOTSKY said...

Rach,

Way COOL!!!


-Gary

Kensie said...

That's AWESOME!!

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