Acting on me impulse and signing up.
As I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight going about to go on vacation I got that idea to take this time to sign up for a 5k that a friend of mine kept asking me if I was going to run in. I really wanted to get started working on improving my fitness once again and this is something I felt I had to do. I won't lie I know I was out of shape and this was probably going to be something I regret when I got back the following weekend. But before I could talk myself out of it I whipped out my phone, found the 5k and signed up.
One Week Later...
I got back from vacation on Friday evening and before I went to bed that night I prepared for battle in the morning. I put the clothes I was planning on running in next to my bed so when the alarm sounded the next morning I could jump right in and make a break for my car. I drove to my friends house out near where the race was going to be so we could head over together.
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| The Shirt Alone Was Worth it! |
5th Annual Bark In The Park 5k.
The 5k race is called the Bark In The Park and what makes this race unique is that runners have the option to run along side there 4 legged friends. There actually was a fair amount of runner that ran with their dogs. Sadly I don't have a dog but even if I did I am pretty sure I was about to have enough fun all by myself. The morning was very rainy so people were all huddled together to await the start of the race. I had some jitters. There was people stretching and doing little warming up exercises. Even the dogs were stretching their legs. Not being prepared I was about to have a bad day.On Your Mark, Set, BANG!
For the first mile of the race I was actually surprising myself. I was pretty stiff but my legs fell into a nice rhythm. As I passed the 1 mile marker, the pain began to say "Howdy! You didn't think it would be that easy did you! Mwuhahaha!" Pain is stupid but then again so am I for running a race without preparing more aggressively or as it felt at all.
I slowed to a walk even though it felt like a crawl. It wasn't until I looked to my right and saw a runner with a Basset Hound whose legs were moving at Mach 10 that I was sucking hard core. After my double take I just said to myself "Oh hell no" and bursted into a sprint. I knew if I wanted to finish with any respectable time I would have to fall back to some interval training. I broke into a pace of sprints of 40 seconds and jogging every 20 seconds. I used this method until I finally got across the finish line.
What I took away from this experience.
I was not prepared nearly enough and for that reason I sucked it up. But I am not discouraged. I actually did take a few deeper things away. Firstly was the thrill of competition. There was one point that I kept going back and for with a few of the runners. I didn't want to be left in the dust and it made me push myself. Second was actually acting and signing up for the race. I had a feeling if I came back from vacation and hadn't signed up yet that I would talk myself out of doing it. Having a set date to look forward toward and do what is necessary to be happy of your performance on that day pushes you to do what you know needs to be done.
In the spirit of setting a date.
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