Her Chick-Fil-A 5K

My Walking Partner :) :)

This past Saturday Sean and I, with a friend and our family, ran (Sean) and walked (everyone else) in the Chick-Fil-A 5K. I need motivation to work out and really push myself up out of the recliner. I was hoping that a 5K would do that and it did. I found myself wanting to walk to see if I could go the distance and to see if I could better my time from the previous day. Honest - I didn't always feel that way and had days of making excuses but I did walk more often than if the race wasn't coming.

I walked the same 5K last year and I had a time of a little over one hour. I did not train properly for that race and am ashamed to admit that I had not walked a full 5K distance prior to the day of the race. I was exhausted and hot and just wanted it to be over. It took a full day to recover and I almost decided to never do that again. I guess enough of the memories faded over the past year, because I found myself signing up for this year's race.

Saturday morning we woke up early (had to be there at 7:00 a.m. to pick up our packets) and got our race gear together. We both had extra bottles of water, a CamelBack for me to wear so I wouldn't dehydrate, and some granola bars in case we were starving. We found my friend/co-worker who was walking the race with me so I wouldn't have to walk alone - love her!!! - and then found my parents and sister and bro-in-law. We hung around for a little while and dad scoped out all the free stuff. There was, of course, time for photos (that I included here on the blog). Finally, at around 8:10, it was time to get into our corrals.

There were four total and Jill and I, Jenn and Andy, Mom and Dad queued up in Corral 4 where the walkers were supposed to go. Sean went up to Corral 1 with the runners. I was more nervous for him at this point because I knew he wanted to make his goal of under 26:00 so badly. I had butterflies as the race started thinking about him. Then, when it was our turn to start, the butterflies were back for me...
     what if my shin splints act up today
     what if my knees and ankles start to hurt
     what if I can't keep up with Jill
     what if I dehydrate or can't get enough water
     what if the shoes do something dumb, or the socks do something dumb, or something, anything does something dumb

Myself, Mom, and Jenn (+Baby Girl) ready to race!

Then the horn sounded and we were off. We kept a fairly stead pace through the first 3/4 of a mile. The shin splints did start up and my knee bothered me a little. I drank from the CamelBack when I was thirsty and keep pushing on. We were starting to get passed by the leaders (the course is a down and back so they shared the path at times) and I started looking for Sean. Seeing him in the top 200 runners made me so happy and gave me extra energy -- so I jogged a little. Not too far but my shin splints went away, knee pain vanished, and I got into a good rhythm. At around the 2 mile mark, Sean came back (he had finished and was checking in with me - a few people did that throughout the race) and he told me his time. I started jumping up and down --- I was so proud. (His post is coming soon so you can check that out to see how he did!) I jogged a little more then and continued walking through the course.

My results!

Now...I did not walk last year with Jill. She can do a 5K in 45 minutes so her pace is much quicker than mine. I noticed at this point that she was pacing us faster than I had been practicing and I got nervous that I couldn't continue that until the end. Before I could really stress about it though, I saw the turn to the finish. We came around the corner and Sean went off to the right (he couldn't cross the finish line again). Jill and I grabbed hands and ran in to the finish. My time was 56:33!!!!! I was so elated and proud of myself that I had knocked that much time off and had not given up!!

My favorite part of the race is what happened next - we walked over to the tent and got ourselves a Chick-Fil-A sandwich and chocolate chip cookie. A delicious reward for a job well done! :) Now to decide what race I will walk next...