If You Toe the Line, You Have to Race

I'm all about the 5K distance.  I've been enjoying the shorter running.  No lie. It's The Year of The 5K and I am LOVING IT.

There's no pressure to train.
Sometimes I wake up and run fast, and sometimes I run relaxed, and sometimes I skip my run and climb 5 or 6 flights of stairs at the hospital 2 or 3 times a shift.  And that's my workout.  This is not training.  This is running for the joy of running.

You know what else is awesome about the 5K distance?

I can do all those things, or none of them, and it doesn't matter.

The Pre-Race Photo

The 5K will still be out there waiting for me.  I will get to the end of it regardless of my non-training.  If it doesn't go well, there will be another 5K in a few weeks and I can run back to back 5K races without hurting myself.

And that was my mindset when I went out to run my December 5K.

I told DeNiece to pick the race.

I didn't really care which one she picked.  As I said, a 5K is a 5K, and since I haven't been doing too much specific training it almost didn't matter which one she chose.  Hills or Flat?  A known course or a new course?  Nothing mattered except showing up and having some fun.

And FUN is my middle name, so that's a given.
Actually it's spelled like Althea, but is pronounced Fun.

DeNiece picked me up after a healthy breakfast of 3 chocolate chip cookies.  I may have had some water... wait.  No I didn't, but I definitely had some coffee.  For the record, my pre-race dinner was 5 pita chips, a spoonful of hummus, 2 glasses of wine and a marshmallow.  Oh yeah, and a shot of Fireball.  Can't forget that...

Basically, on the drive over, I questioned aloud whether or not I was in top running form.

Not that it mattered.  It's only a 5K.  And as I said it, I thought, "I'm not sure I'm showing the 5K enough respect".

We arrived at the Jingle Bell 5K to discover that Harry Potter, one of my all time favorite Black Team runner friends, was standing in the packet pickup line with is son, M!  It was M's first 5K!

It was sure to be a #bestdayever!

There was some banter.  Some wardrobe commentary.  Some jokes were thrown around about "just go win it, ok?"

We ran a warm up, got a selfie, walked around, said 'hi' and 'Merry Goodness' to all the peeps we saw and recognized, and then it was time to line up.

I wasn't feeling epic.  But I was feeling some bad dance moves.  It's nice when you can not only embarrass your own kids, but you can also embarrass your friend's children.

I wandered back into the crowd... and DeNiece and another GBA 5K team member, WnW, pulled me to the start line and said, "This is where we line up."

I said, "I don't belong up here."
Potter said, "If you toe the line, you have to race it."
D & WnW basically said, "You belong here.  We are here.  You are with us."

I lost track of D & WnW within about 13 seconds of the start.  They went that fast.  I saw them up hills and on the out and back, but generally it was my race to run alone.  That said, I didn't get passed by a tremendous amount of runners.

The Potter Boys - look at that kid's form! Love it! (glad to
 see Harry Potter catching on with the festive "tall socks")

I ran well.  Pushed myself.  It was hilly.
I felt a little hunted by the Potter Boys.  I kept expecting them to come from behind.
I walked a hill and dry heaved at mile 2ish.  I decided Fireball may have been a bad pre-race hydration strategy and will note that for future 5Ks. ~respect~
I really pushed it on my last half mile.

I finished having no idea what the clock read.  I ran without a watch, as is my new habit, so I truly had no idea how fast I had run.  The Potters rolled in right after me.

There were high fives exchanged all around!  M rocked out his day.  He should be proud of himself.

We ran/walked a little cool down and made noises about leaving before the rain started.  We didn't leave though, because DeNiece pointed out that WnW had probably won her age group.

Team GBA 5K

Well, while we were at the awards waiting for them to call WnW's name, we heard my name called for 3rd place A.G finish!  And DeNiece was 3rd in her A.G!  And WnW did, in fact, win her A.G!

The Bling

All on the day that was M Potters first 5K!  What a fun day!

Even more fun when I looked up the results last night and I was pleased to see they had read my A.G. awards in the wrong order, and I was actually 1st place A.G. finisher.

But you know what was the MOST fun of all?

I took off time between my October 5K and December 5K.  A lot of time.
:59 seconds worth of time.  Of course, you know what I thought first when I compared the two times?

"I couldn't have run 1 second faster?"

Yeah.  Runners are weird.  And I am a runner.

The Year of the 5K stats so far:

~ savor the run ~ respect the distance ~