Fools Five Race

Well WE DID IT!!! Phil & I ran the 8k race today. That's 4.97 MILES. Of RUNNING. 4.97........WITH a KILLER hill.

We registered this morning at 9:30...weather looked ok, a little windy. Rain was forecasted for later in the day. We decided we'd walk to the starting point (about a mile) as our warm up. We were gonna leave around noon, race started at 1:00. Well I think it was around 11:30 it starts to drizzle....then the sidewalks got all wet.....yep it was raining. Not a hard rain but not a rain I wanted to run in. So we said forget the warm up walk, we need a ride! So David dropped us off at the school around 12:15 or so. We stayed in the school for awhile to stay dry. Headed to the starting point around 12:45.....it had stopped raining!! I think the sun may have even peeked a bit. But the wind was still there. Shotgun start at 1:00.....we hit the 1 mile mark at 9 mins 42 seconds...whoa Phil we gotta slow down! I can run a mile in 10 mins but if I'm gonna run 5 miles, I gotta go at a 11 1/2 min/mile pace. This was almost 2 mins faster!

We did slow down but was still going faster than I'm used to. Phil pushed me hard!! I'm guessing it was around 3 1/2 miles that I needed to walk...so we did for 60 seconds...1 minute. That was all he let me walk! I was allowing myself at least 5 minutes. We came near the end (uphill & against the wind too which sucked) and Phil says "let's beat that guy in the pink shirt" Huh!? Excuse me!? I'm about ready to keel over & you want to RUN now?? Ya ya I know I said I was gonna kick it in at the end & leave him in the dust.....but who was I kidding??? He kicked my arse. He runs 3 times & I've been running for 4 months. He actually was surprised I ran the way I did with the way I breathe. He says I don't know how to breathe & was panting the whole 5 miles. I'd say I was just dying for the last 2 miles. So Phil kicks it up a notch and pulls ahead of me.....well I did my best & gave it what I got & I too beat the guy in the pink shirt...and the young kid that was walking/running. Final results haven't been posted yet, but we both came in at just over 52 minutes. I think Phil beat me by about 10 seconds. I was thinking we'd do it in around 57 minutes.....so we beat that!

Five flippin' MILES.....can you believe that?? That is a LONG ways to run. I still can't believe I did it. What an accomplishment. I was pretty sore when we were done & kind of scared to see how I feel in the morning!!

Lexi was the video camera girl & took this video beforehand.........then she said she *forget* to record when we were running! Nick was the camera man & took a picture when I ran by him....JUST as I threw off my jacket, so it's a shot of my jacket!!! That was all he got! Marcie took some & I will post those as soon as she emails them to me!