Goal #1 Accomplished: 5K finished!!

In late January I made a list of my top goals for myself this year.  They included a number of things one of them was to run (and complete of course) a 5K.  Now, if you haven known me for a number of years you  know that I was extremely athletic up through high school. Then I became a slacker in college and never picked a solid consistent physical activity.  But at age 35 I've got to start doing something.  So I searched for 5Ks in NH and found the Smuttynose Run for Beer 5K. Perfect!  It was in June which was enough time to train and so I enlisted Lisa to sign up with me.  

I have been running pretty consistently in May and this past week I ran 3.5 miles several times and I felt good after running so I knew I was ready.    Brendan and the kids were going to come cheer me on.  

Well, this morning of course we wake up to showers and rain and I grudgingly told Brendan to stay home. I didn't want to make the kids miserable just so I could have my cheering section.  That being said, I jumped out of bed this morning and was bouncing around the house I was  SO excited.  

Lisa and I drove over to Hampton and of course it was rainy and chilly which actually is not that bad of weather for running.  We signed in along with the 1700 other registrants, got our cool free tshirt and sat back in the car for another 45 minutes waiting and psyching ourselves up.    

I made Lisa take a photo in front of the finish before the race started. :)

 We walked 0.8 miles to the actual start and at 11am we were off! You can see there are hundreds of runners in front of us. I saw lots of marathoners in the race probably using this as a warm up to their big event and and lots of newbies like me too.  As the whistle blew I felt amazing.  Everyone is running, everyone is doing their very best, and I felt motivated just from the energy around me.  It's hard to describe but it was just awesome.  The route was down some rural roads and through a farm land.  Several families waited by the end of their driveways and cheered us on.  Some families handed out water.   It was a those brief moments that I missed my own family but I was ok.  

Lisa told me I ran faster as the race went on and I think I was just pushed on by all of this. I was in the moment and it was awesome.  We reached the finish line at 30 minutes and 22 seconds (Lisa's time was a couple seconds faster.) and I felt like I could have gone farther. It was so GREAT!!

 Wet but we did it!!

Some of our loot from the the companies that sponsored the event.

Line for the Smuttynose Beer Tent.

So WORTH it!!

I'm officially hooked!! My revised goal for this year is to run at least 2 more 5Ks this year and then a 10K next year. I could totally do it!!