ICC 5K

From the day I signed up for it, I thought this race was on Saturday. Luckily I realized it was today thanks to some running friends who also signed up. Unfortunately I haven't been running very much, and I was not looking forward to getting up early and running. I don't mind the getting up early part. I have a baby who thinks it's his job to get me up way earlier than I would otherwise. But I didn't want to have to get up early enough to get us both ready and be to the race site by 8:30. I even considered making up an excuse. I forgot to set my alarm or my baby kept me up and I overslept. I paid a $25 registration fee but it was going to the special olympics, so it's not like I would be wasting the money. But I'd rather walk the whole thing than not go at all. I'm not a quitter and I don't want to teach Jack that it's ok to give up when something is hard or you just don't feel like doing it. So I trudged out of bed and got us out the door at a reasonable time.

It was an out and back course and I thought I could run the first half and maybe walk the second half. There was a team from the police academy right behind me during the first half. They were singing running songs (like they do in the military) and it was very motivating. I think Jack enjoyed it too! When I got to the turn around, I decided to keep going. I got to mile 2 and thought, "There's no way I can justify walking the last mile when I've made it this far." Jack was in his stroller and I kept saying things to him like, "We're almost there. Just gotta make it up this hill." It kept me going. And I ran the whole way! I didn't stop once!

I was wearing my running watch, trying to keep track of how fast I was going. Once I realized I had a chance at finishing in under 40 minutes, that motivated me to keep going strong. I saw the finish line up ahead and realized it was getting very close to 40 minutes. My previous training kicked in and I started sprinting towards the finish. I did a cool maneuver to get around 2 people who were walking in front of me, and I just made it. My official race time is 39:57:38 with a pace of 12:52. Awesome!

Here's Jack and I after we just finished the race:

I'm not sure what's next for us. It's hard to find races that allow strollers. Plus it's going to start getting too cold to take Jack out. I'll have to figure something out so that I'm not starting over again next spring. I hope to start training for a half marathon next year! That has been my goal for a few years now and I really want to keep Jack exposed to running.

For now, we'll continue to run around the neighborhood and try to find races that allow strollers. Stay tuned!