Firecracker 5k

Striking my best running pose (now you see why I'm slow?)

I do realize I still haven't posted about the Beach to Chowder Run, but I am still waiting on pictures, and what is a good blog without pictures? All you need to really know about that run in order for the tale of this run to be exquisite is my time, so spoiler alert, I got an embarrassing 42:00. Between the conditions, my out-of-shapeness and lack of training, and my poor will power that was my first 5k time. Luckily, it gave me a long way to go. Lots of room for improvement.

The Runners! My coach and trainer, support and hero! is it just me or do I still look tired?

So going into today my big goal was to PR, by at least a minute or two. Unfortunately, it seems you always go into a race with something wrong (look at me talk like I am some saged runner now!) and this was no exception. I had done some jumping exercises earlier in the week that my poor tiny calves are still sore from and I had been able to run all week. On top of that, with all my nervousness I forgot to take my inhaler, oops. So those were my negatives, but I did have one really big positive, Jesse. Alesha was supposed to do this run with me, but in what may have been a stroke of luck she bailed at the last minute and Jesse filled in. He is great at pushing me either because he is an awesome motivator or I just don't want to look to dumb in front of him.

Jesse, not really nervous. Running with me would be a breeze, even with a hurt ankle.
I, however, was a nervous wreck! I peed twice before the race and could have made it three.
We were trying to be red, white, and blue patriotic! Not many others were feeling the spirit here.

Whichever it is I was looking forward to getting to Elma and starting the race, but in another stroke of bad luck, the thing was poorly ran and the race started an hour late, so we did a lot of standing around. Once we finally started, I took my place in the back and headed off for 3.1 miles of torture. Why I run hasn't officially kicked in yet. Jesse thinks I just do it to get dressed up and have some place to go. He is probably right. I definitely still struggled today, but it was better. I ended up PRing by 3 min and 19 sec. We crossed the line at 38 min 41 sec. Due to lack of runners it was good enough for a medal (second in my division) and Jesse won his division. He could have easily won the whole thing if he didn't have to stay with me. This was definitely more of a triathlon event.

Just after the race and happy to be done.
What our medal's look like, still cracks me up that we got em.

Now I am at a crossroad. I have a super competitive nature and I hate not being good at things. Initially, I think part of why I took up running is because it is the only competitive type sport I can really do around here. However, I will never have the time or discipline to be as good as I would want to be, but I might be able to be decent. So do I keep doing this thing I hate for sport or do I just keep running/walking to stay in shape and just do the occasional race for fun? Or hey, do I stop running all together since it sucks! It is just so weird that we have some kind of racing event like every weekend. When did we become a racing family? Jesse did say it is nice to be getting out and doing something like this. I do believe I have to credit Stacie for the inspiration and lately her inspiration (Tall Mom on the Run) for getting me interested in racing and being good at it, although I have no aspirations of running long distances. Just too boring for me. I will always just be a sprinter. Ok, that is too crazy that I just called 3 miles, a sprint!