My First Race

Maybe "race" is too strong of a word for Sunday's run... it implies competitiveness & winners vs. losers. I don't think any of that took place, at least not within the little group of Couch-To-5k-ers we had running that morning. It was the first 5k for all of us: me, Tink: my running buddy, Rebecca: coworker, Danielle: facebook group member, & Michael: random dude.

Or maybe I just say all this because I'm not actually good at running & want to feel better! haha No, I honestly can say I don't care about competition, that's not why I started this. I just wanted to do something to get me out of my house, keep some sanity, relieve stress, & be healthy... as it turns out I got even more than that from it. I got something I can be proud of myself for. And I got a crazy little community of supporters! It's like this strange secret society & once you're in, word gets around to the other members, & they all want to talk about running & support each other. It's awesome. And it doesn't matter that I am s-l-o-w & not running far, the point is: you're a runner & so am I.

Can you feel the love?



As soon as we got to church (we sure weren't winning any medals so we didn't stick around after the race & actually made it to church on time) I was flooded by support, love, & lots of questions about our very first race. Why would people running half-marathons care about our dinky 3.2 miles? Because they're runners & so am I... sort of. And maybe because we all know what it's like to one day say "Hey, I think I should be a runner" & then follow through with it even though it feels like death the majority of the time.

So does it matter that I came in 109th place? hahaha Not really.

Does it matter that Tink & I came in LAST of all the people who actually ran the whole time? Nope.

Does it matter than we did run the whole time? Or that we were even in the race while thousands of people slept? ABSOLUTELY.



One Final Note:

Want to be awesome 13 minute mile runners like us (that's a joke in case you're not in the club... that's slow) you're going to need some motivation. Here's a few of our mottos:

"You have to make the mind run the body" which turned into randomly yelling "You don't make the rules, body!" or "Suck it, body!"

"Pain is weakness leaving the body"... learned that from my military science class Hooah!

"Feels so good" code for: I feel like I might die. This is where we got our sorority from: feels so good = phi sigma gamma

"That's so hardcore" code for: we must be freaking nuts