Our First Official 5K

Saturday morning our alarm went off at 7:00 am. I looked out the window and guess what. It was snowing. On April 30th. The ground was covered and there was snow in all the trees. Oh good grief. I had a moment of...do we skip? We got up, ate, dressed for the run and debated our options. We decided to go and see what was going on. We decided to leave the kids behind though. It was just too cold and I couldn't figure out what we would do with them while we ran. 

We arrived a little after 8:00 am and found a pretty good sized group already there. We knew we were doing this. 

The Owlz mascot arrived the same time we did. He was there to cheer all of us on along as was the Chick-Fil-A cow.

Our race was suppose to start at 8:30 am but things were running a little behind schedule. 

We had plenty of time to stand around, freeze, talk with friends, get hungry and get anxious. Finally it was time to start. Just as an FYI Paul and I don't run together. His stride is much longer. It wouldn't be nice to make him run at my speed. 

The start of the race had a fairly flat stretch for a short time then we headed east up a pretty substantial hill. It was brutal. Paul and I have no experience running up hills or running in almost freezing weather. We've been running on a flat, squishy, climate controlled indoor track. We both decided to save our energy and briskly walk up part of the hill. We started running once we got to the top of the hill and then ran until the last mile. That is when we both hit a wall. 

We thought that the roads that run north/south were rather flat but when you're running you notice they aren't all that flat after all. I wanted to run the whole thing but sadly realized that it wasn't going to happen. Luckily I set a really easy goal for myself so I wouldn't get sad if I didn't do well. I'm glad I did that. My goal was to come in under 40 minutes.  

 Here I come. I'm the one in the white sweatshirt. 

I hate this picture so much.

I don't know my exact time but it was 36 minutes and probably a lot of seconds. 

Paul wanted to be in under 30 but he came in at 31 minutes and some seconds. (We hope they post exact times at some point)

I needed some food really badly. 

I was all over the oranges and whole wheat tortillas. Yum!

I love mascots. 

Paul and I on our 15th anniversary after our first race. 

Me and Grover

Just for the record it was really cold. Almost freezing cold. 

I'm so proud of us and all the work we've put in to get ready for this. I don't think it was what either of us expected but we had a great time. We will be doing more races, that is for sure. I want to be able to finish having ran the whole thing. I think we need to find a really flat course, at sea level where it is exactly 65 degrees. I have a feeling we'd kick some total butt at a race like that. Running at this elevation is brutal!