38:50

My fastest 5K ever! Yay!

There's no other explanation for why I'm in such a good mood when I woke up at 6:30 on a Saturday. :)

Now I realize I've been more than a little behind in updating this blog, so in case you were wondering how I got to this point, here's the back story:

After our 5K with the dogs, I started to get the itch to run again. Between moving into the new house, trips, visitors, and Adam's deployment, running (and any other attempt at being healthy and active) kind of went out the window. Being outside on a beautiful day in the fun race atmosphere made me want to get back into the shape I'd been in last summer. So I set my sights on running another 5K. Soon enough, we found one that was being run on May 1st (5 or 6 weeks after the dog 5K). It was perfect because it was the last weekend Adam would be home before his deployment (fun family time) and because it was a "Sunset Stampede" at 6pm. Adam is NOT a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, so the fact that it was later in the day made him much more willing to come along with me.

When I started running, I went all the way back to Day 1 of the Couch-to-5K program. And I needed it. It was tough to think that I had lost a lot of the ability that I had built up last year, but I always felt so good after a run. As much as I might dread a run or think I had something better to be doing beforehand, I never regretted a run afterwords.

When the race came up last weekend, I wasn't all the way through the program. I also knew there was no way I was going to make the leap from week 5 to running the whole thing. I knew I would need to take some walking breaks. But I felt fine about that going in. I would have plenty of time later to keep training and get faster. I'd probably be a few minutes slower than last year, but whatever. I just wanted to do something fun with Adam, be outside and score a free T-shirt. :) I felt awesome during the race. I didn't really have a plan; I just ran when I could and walked when I needed a break. (p.s. Walking through the water stations is KEY. Walking and drinking is hard enough. Running is way too bumpy to hydrate properly. Because of this, when I get back to wanting to run the whole thing, I'll definitely wear a CamelBak for water since that's way easier.) To my complete surprise, I crossed the finish line in about 41 minutes. About 4 minutes faster than I did in July. How cool is that?

As we crossed the finish line, the handed everyone a flier for a race the very next weekend. Following my personal record performance, I was very interested. When I found out the race started at Navarre High School and the route went directly past my house I was in. I signed up this Wednesday. Even though Adam was gone and I wished he could be there with me, it gave me something fun and exciting to look forward to this weekend. (Instead of just work and hanging out at home with the puggles - which is also awesome, don't get me wrong.)

Anyway, today (after working until 9:30 last night), I got up at 6:30 to be ready for the race at 7:30. I did feel kind of lonely without Adam beforehand (and they were all out of t-shirts by the time I went to pick up my number :( ) The race was smaller than any others I had been in (I think they do the numbers alphabetically and I was #10.) I felt good through the whole race again. My mini-goal within the race was to run for the whole first mile. Unfortunately, there were no mile-markers on the course! (The streets were also NOT closed to traffic, which I thought was kind of weird.) So, I ran until the first water station, which felt like about a mile. :) Because there were no markers or people with watches on the course, I had no idea how I was doing time-wise. Believe me, I was quite surprised when I rolled up on the last straight-away and saw that the time was about 38 minutes. I booked it as best I could for the last stretch and made it around 38:50 (I don't have an official time, yet, but that's about what it looked like to me.)

What's funny is about an hour after the race, I had gotten home and showered and I took the dogs out for their walk. All throughout the neighborhood you could still hear the announcer on the loudspeakers from the school stadium as he was giving out awards to the winners. I busted out laughing in the middle of the street when I heard him announce that Mary Dunn had come in 4th place in the 25-29 female division. I wouldn't be surprised when we get emailed the official results if there were only 4 runners in that division. :) Either way, I had a fun morning and I'm super proud of myself.

Ok, that's more than enough gushing for one day. I still have to run to Walmart for some things and get ready for work. I hope this runner's high will help get me through the mad crowds at the Hallmark store tonight doing their last-minute Mother's Day shopping. :)

p.s. There is ANOTHER local 5K next Saturday morning, but I think I'll pass on this one. There's a farmer's market in Pensacola that just opened for the season that I think I want to check out instead. I will definitely be repeating my appearance in the Firecracker 5K, but I'm not sure about anything else until then.

Also, I'm attempting to post a video here that I took right after the race today (well, as soon as I got home) as a message for Adam. I'm curious to see if it works!