It was slow. It was ugly. But I lived to blog about it!

I wandered out of my hotel and walked to the race about 30 minutes before that start time. I met up with Paige from St. Louis on the walk over. This was her first race too and she was excited that I had an ipod too. She was afraid that it would be unsocial to run with one. We stuck together through out the warm up period mocking the people doing sprints before the race. Then they had group aerobics. A little skinny perky woman got on the microphone and led a warm up. It included jumping jacks. Seriously? I’m about to run. I need my strength.

We decided that we could easily walk 5K so the odds of dying was low. Besides it was all vet-types in the run. If we passed out everyone had medical training.

We started out together. I still have no idea how to pace myself on a road under different conditions. I ran the first mile in 11 minutes and knew that I was probably in trouble. When I did distance work I was going at about 13 minute miles. I’ve been doing “speed” work at 10 minute mile pace but the longest I’ve gone is a quarter mile. So basically I’d just done my fastest full mile ever. Yeah for me but there where two more to go.

I started alternating running and walking then. This is when the major hills started. My hill traing helped here. I could power walk up those hills and pass other walkers. Anytime there was a break from going straight uphill I would run.

At this point I was composing blog posts in my mind. They contained mostly cussing.

There was a short downhill coming back to Olympic Park. But I knew there was a killer hill to the end. I strolled up that hill yesterday and got tired. Now they wanted me to run it? I power walked up that and felt sorry for the lady pushing the kid in a wheelchair. The kid was pushing the wheels as fast as she could but they were going nowhere fast. My hotel was halfway but the hill. Too bad my room key was at the gear check at the finish line.

I started running again at the top. I came around two turns to the finish line. I figured I should sprint since I was pretty much by myself so I should make it look good. Right then this skinny little blond thing passed me. Rude! So I sprinted to pass her right back and I would have done it if I was willing to elbow her out of the chute but I’m friendly.

Paige from St Louis was waiting for me. She said that she’d been done for a few minutes. We decided that running in Atlanta in August is stupid. Denver would be good except for the altitude. Next year’s AVMA is in St Louis – too hot. We decided that we need the SF Bay Area or runs in the fall. We hung out for while but decided that we were in no danger of winning any awards. Besides, they had our addresses. We took our pictures with her phone to prove survived. She’s going to email it to me so I can post it.

My time was 41:56. Yeah, super slow but not last and since it is my first 5K then it is my own world record.

I talked to my dad. He ran a 27 minute 5K last night. He said that my time wasn’t much slower. What? He was a math teacher. 41 > 27. Turns out he thought I said 31. He backpedaled a bunch once I made him understand 41. He settled on, “That’s a good start. You survived. Make a spreadsheet to record all your times.” I’m not anal enough for that. Besides I have a blog.

I was back in my hotel by an hour after the race start time. I got a shower and now am back in lectures. Blogging instead of paying attention to probiotics. I knew I should have gone to the Whale Shark class.

My face is fried. I’m not sure how. I had a hat on and SPF 70 sport sunblock and sunglasses. My eyelids hurt. Just more proof that running is bad for you!