Friday Flashback - My First Real 5k

March 10, 2007 - photo by Alexis Hjelm

This morning I didn't really have a run scheduled, but I actually felt good, and I really wanted to go running! This might be because my alarm didn't go off and I slept for an extra half an hour. (I still got the kids to school on time, though!) But, whatever the reason, I wasn't going to let wanting to run go to waste.

Man it was cold this morning (like 30 degrees), but I didn't even hesitate to grab some warm running tights and get all suited up. I had gloves and ear warmer, but just two long-sleeved shirts because I always end up wanting to take my jacket off. This ended up being perfect, and after a mile and a half I took the gloves off and tucked them into my shorts waist, then I took my ear warmer off at around 2 miles.

Starting out, listening to Muse, I felt like I was in a movie or even a cool running commercial or something. Muse will do that to you, I guess. I just felt so light and quick, and just good! It was awesome. I had decided to just do a quick, fun run and not worry about my time or speed or anything, and it was a good thing too because the battery on the Garmin died before I had even gone a mile. So I got to have that big, heavy thing on my wrist just for looks. (ok, it's not that heavy)

I ended up doing probably 5 miles. Maybe a little more. When I got to my house, I was listening to "Grounds For Divorce" by Elbow and I didn't want to start cooling down until it was over so I went around the block. But when it ended, "The Uprising" by Muse came on, and that is not a good cool down song. That's a good "Let's kill this run!" kind of song. So I kept going strong until that was over.

Really, I just felt so good and so fast the whole run. I don't know if I really was fast, but I felt good, and had a great time. That's what matters. Running is just so amazing!

I used to hate running. When I would go running before, every second was agony to me. I'm going to tell you about my first 5k, which was kind of a turning point for me. It helped me see that I really could run and that maybe it wasn't so bad.

When I got pregnant with Elle, I had already done my first Triathlon and fallen in love with the sport, but I still hated the running part of it. I had planned on doing several tris that summer, but getting pregnant put an end to those plans. I'm not complaining, though, I love Elle and I'm SO glad I have her! Anyway, shortly after she was born, I hurt my back in spin class so that also put a damper on triathlon training (I still did some later that year though). Even though I hated it, I wanted to get better at running so that I could at least run the whole 5k at the end of my next tri.

Around this time, my sister, Katie, decided to she wanted to start running so we planned to do the Red Cross 5k on March 10, 2007. That was my anniversary, but I think Pete had something going on that day too. This would be my first real 5k. One that wasn't at the end of a triathlon.

We lived in different cities, but we found a training plan online and we both stuck to it religiously. It's funny now to think about a training plan to build up distance to 3.1 miles, but that was our goal, and it was hard enough. We added like a quarter-mile every week or something like that so it wasn't too daunting for us non-runners.

When race day came, we were ready and excited! Here we are before the race. Man, I miss that pink jacket! The zipper broke so I brought it back to the Pearl Izumi factory outlet, where I got it, to see if I could trade. They did let me trade, but they didn't have any more pink so I took a red one instead, which is pretty cool. But I liked my pink one.

The race started and I just thought it was so weird to have it be so packed with runners like that, and weird to have so many people with me during the run. It was fun though!

Here I come into the finish! I don't know why I even wore that ugly hat, look how cloudy it was. I tried desperately to find out what my time was, but I can't find it anywhere. I know I must have written it somewhere, but I don't know where. I think I came it at right around half an hour, though. It seems like it was either 29 or 31 minutes.

Here comes Katie! I was so proud of her that day! I can't remember what her time was either. She kept training and did a half marathon that same year, and this year we plan to do the Park City Marathon together. That will be awesome!

In the mean time, we're going to do our second race together! Finally. I can't believe it's almost been 3 years!

Katie's doing a 5k next weekend in Logan, and I am going to go up and do it with her. I'm so excited to see how fast I can do it! Maybe that was my motivation for such a good run today. Maybe I need races in my life. Even in the winter.