Kickin' Some 5K Booty!

Well, folks, I did it. I ran my first ever 5K! Let me just take a quick minute to celebrate- wahoooooooooooooooo! About a year ago I got into running. I started on a treadmill at our apartment complex's gym. When we moved to the house and I didn't have the treadmill anymore it dawned on me how much I enjoyed, and now missed, running. My sweet husband recognized this and used his Craigslist sleuthing skills to find me a used treadmill. With the kidney revolt it was put on hiatus for a while. When I finally got the go ahead from my doc I laced up my shoes and hit the treadmill again!

With the new year I made a set of goals for myself to accomplish before I turned 30. One of them was to run an entire 5K. Now, I've walked quite a few in my day, but never run one. I starting my own version of training and began scouring the internet for a local race I wanted to support. Many 5K's are run in support/honor of a cause or a person, so I wanted to my first full one to be a cause I was interested in.

About a month ago someone I went to high school with posted about a 5K taking place in my hometown (about 10 minutes down the road from where I live now). This was the Angels of '97 5K. This is an organization very near and dear to my heart. It was started to honor five students from a local high school who all passed away before their graduation in 1997. The organization now honors other local teens who passed away before their time. The 5K, along with a silent auction and all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner, race money to fund scholarships for teens at the local high schools. In fact I earned one when I graduated in 2006! I couldn't imagine a more perfect race to be my first:-)

I woke up early Saturday morning a ball full of nerves. I'm still not exactly sure why I was freaking out so much. It's not like this was my first time ever running. Regardless, I grabbed something to eat and was out the door. I was about ten minutes down the road when I realized I forgot my headphones. Mother of pearl. There was no way this thing was happening without some musical motivation, so I turned the car around.

This set me back in time, which I had so carefully plotted out. I had it in my mind that I would get there with 30 minutes to spare to pick up my race day packet, stretch, and get in the zone (hey, I've warned y'all from the beginning I'm too Type-A for my own good). Fat chance that was going to happen now.

Anywho, I arrived with just enough time to grab my packet and head up to the starting line. I turned on my running playlist and got ready for the start. A few minutes later we were off! It was a great run and aside from the hill in the first mile I felt awesome! It didn't hurt that I had this cute kid as my leader:

About halfway through I realized that I was definitely going to be able to run the whole thing. That momentum was enough to help me pick up the pace until the end. My final mile pace was 8:10 and my final time was 25:23. WAHOOOOOOOOO! I finished first in my age group and 32nd overall. I still cannot believe it. God truly pushed me to keep going and it showed in the end.

Will I be doing this again? Heck yes. I'm already on the hunt for another! If you know of a good one in the Charlotte area, let me know!