2012 5K

Lisa and I.  My running Hero! ( Before)

Lisa finished in 23:55 (After)

I was soooo excited about this race!  I had been looking forward to it for months, and I have actually been training and running a ton!  A 5K really in not that far 3.1 miles!  I used to think it was really far, but that was before I started running 4 days a week!  So i decided in April (actually it was on my birthday the 23rd) that I wanted to become a runner!  I committed to running the half marathon in October and knew I had a long way to go to get up to 13.1 miles.  Now, I HATE to run!  I would always get really sick just thinking about running in school, or when I was playing softball and my coach would make us run a mile.  I HATED it, it was almost a fear of mine to run!  I didn't want to feel the pain of running, I didn't want to feel sick, and everything else that came with running!  Anyway, that's way I decided I wanted to overcome this fear, and this crutch I have had in my life for a really long time.  So I started out running a little here and there and then I started following a 10K program and I ran my first 4 miles about a week and a half ago and I was so excited.  I had really been focusing on right breathing techniques because in the beginning I was struggling with cramps and was trying to over come them by different breathing techniques!  I felt I had it mastered and was feeling really good about everything.  I had tried a few different running techniques too before the race, and I figured out which one worked best for me.  

Friday night I had to work at the ball field for a tournament, and there were a bunch of things that went on that night that made it a really stressful night, I didn't end up picking the kids up form Clint's sister until about 11:30 and didn't get home until after 12 and into bed until 1 and had to be up at 5:30.  Not to mention the 2 times I had to get up with the baby in the night.  So needless to say I think I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep.

Now I had a goal of 30 minutes and under which I knew I could do.  I had been working towards this for just over a month.  Now to the race!  We lined up and they said go.  I started out really excited and thought in my mind ok, I am just going to run my own pace, do my breathing techniques, listen to my music and be done in 30 minutes.  Ha, ya right!  A half mile into the race I started getting really bad cramps!  I was like, are you kidding me!  A mile in I finally had to stop and try to get them under control.  I was hurting sooo bad!  I have realized with getting cramps that if affects everything in your body,  I couldn't breath, all my muscles had tensed up and I was running pretty much in a half hunched position!  I just kept telling myself to push through it!  Well that's really hard to do especially when you feel like you are being stabbed just under your rib cage, and in your lower abdomen!  I just said to myself as I was running "why did this have to happen today of all days"  I was REALLY upset about it!  The cramps finally worked themselves out the last 1/4 mile but by that point my muscles had exhausted themselves I had nothing left! My time ended up being 33:05.  That was really hard to see.  Especially because I had been training for it, and when I ran the race 2 years ago and did it in 34 minutes with out training.  It was so discouraging and I seriously thought after the race that I never wanted to run again, but then I came to my senses and knew I was being dumb.

I really don't know why I ended up getting the cramps, whether it was from already being exhausted from the night before, the adrenaline.  I really have no idea, but I was really upset about it all day!  That night after we got home from Clint playing in a ball tournament all day, he just looked at me knowing how upset I was about the race and said to me, despite the things that had happened the night before, and not sleeping the night before that he was really proud of me for doing as well as I did in the race."  That made me feel a lot better!  I am SO grateful for his encouragement and support!

 I have another 5K race in 2 weeks.  I am really hoping that one goes better.