5K? No way!

I need about a week to recover from Saturday. I was so tired last night I didn’t even have the energy or will to blog!

Saturday I got up at about 6:00 to get ready for the Running with Angels Race. I met my friends at 7 and picked up our “group shirts”. DaNae had put the “Highland Road Runners” on some blue shirts from her husband’s company, so not only were we doing a little advertising for him, we all matched and looked cute. Well, not really cute. I mean how cute can you actually look when you are running? Not very. To avoid any hair in the face, I had my hair in pig tails and bobby pinned to the max. Because I hate it when I’m all sweaty and hair gets in my face, don’t you?

So, we drove down to Thanksgiving point and got our stuff. It was a beautiful day. We even got those little electronic shoe chips to tell your time. I kind of felt like prisoner on house arrest. If you step outside the marked path, this thing will zap you and send out enough wattage to curl your hair–forever. OK, not really, but that’s what I was thinking. I was surprised at how many people I knew at the race. And I was a little embarrassed. I mean, I’m not the kind of person you would expect to see at one of these things, and besides, we already discussed how great I looked. As we made our way over to the starting line and waited, I just kept thinking, ‘What in the world am I doing here with all these runners? Why am I even here? Whose idea was this?’ and of course I thought, ‘Now should I go to the bathroom before we start, or can I make it for a whole hour?’ One look at the line for the bathroom convinced me that no, I don’t need to go.

Then, all of a sudden, we were off. I was carried in a sea of runners–well, I wish I had been carried, that would have been more fun–I was running with some runners! I was actually running. I don’t know how far it was that I jogged before I started walking, but soon I was walking, having all kinds of people passing me. I should have just started at the back. I would walk for a while, then jog for a bit, then walk for a while… You get the picture. I really should get a digital watch so I can keep regular about the whole walking/jogging thing, but I just kind of jogged when I felt like I could, and walked the rest of the time. Several times I saw my friends running the other way, and I would wave. That must have made them feel good–“Oh, look how far ahead of Paige I am, Hooray!”

We started at the Children’s Garden at Thanksgiving Point, and then went through the gardens. Since it’s been so cold this spring, the tulips that would normally be spent were at their full blooming glory. It was a beautiful sight. Too bad I couldn’t really appreciate it because I was huffing and puffing along. I soon found my pace and found a few target people to try and stay close to. Id’ like to thank that one girl with the long brown ponytail wearing black shorts and a race t-shirt. I stayed as close to her as I could. Sometimes I was ahead of her, sometimes she was ahead of me. We really should have paired up and done the race together, because I was probably annoying her, always trying to pass when she was walking. There was also a little girl in a pink shirt who made me laugh. She was maybe 7 or 8, and cute as can be. I don’t know where her parents or group were, because it seemed like she was alone. When I came up and passed her, she looked at me, and I smiled at her. Then she picked up her speed and ran to pass me. Then I would slowly come up on her and pass her again, but she would run to pass me. She was probably thinking, “There is no WAY I’m letting that old fat lady beat me on this race!” I don’t remember if I beat her, or if she beat me.

I finally came to the finish, and my time was 45 minutes and 38 seconds. That’s faster than I normally go on the treadmill, so that’s a personal best time for me.

When I looked up my results, I can see that I came in #33 in my age group, (only 12 forty year old women behind my friend Lisa) and 529th out of 754. That means that 225 people were behind me. That makes me feel better. I can also look up my friend’s scores and see that….Wow, they rocked! This categorization system leaves out a little information. Maybe they should rank you by your age, weight, and fitness level. Then I could know, that in the category of out of shape, overweight 40 year old women, I came in..eleventh, or something like that. Or, Look at this, Walter, there were only 5 people older and fatter than me who came in before me! Right.

When the torture was finally over, I grabbed a water bottle and chugged that thing down. I also ate an orange slice or two and those were some REALLY sweet oranges. Hardly worth three miles, but still, yummy. Even though I did not enjoy the race, there is a certain sense of accomplishment in having finished. I am proud of myself, and I’m glad I did it. Do I want to do it again real soon? Oh, hell no.