-I was part of my team from work for this year’s Race for the Cure. I did this last year and walked the 5K. As the date approached I was wondering if I should walk again or attempt to run the 5 K? I’ve been running for about a month so I ‘m in better shape than last year-but I’ve never run a 5K (3.1 miles) before so I was a little indecisive. In addition, on Friday it was warm out-most of the time when I run it’s the time of day when it’s cool out-so I had to factor that in. I finally decided to give running the 5 K a try.

-The day of the race I almost didn’t make it. I race started at 10:15 and I left at around 8:35. I didn’t anticipate how bad traffic would be. By 9:45 I was STILL in a traffic line. Unfortunately, my car started to have problems. It stalled 3 times. One time a puff of white smoke emerged from under the hood & twice it backfired. After the 3rd stall I got out of line and drove past the fairgrounds. I had too-last thing I needed was for the car to stop dead in the middle of that line or worse-miss the race. So I drove past, turned around, ended up having to go towards Camillus till having to turn around AGAIN and then going into Solvay to park. Good thing too-“nature” was shouting at me by the time I parked the car. 🙂

-So I get there and run into long-time friend and former Front Row band mate J. Hatch. Very cool to see him-didn’t have time to talk cause at that moment-the race started! Good thing I don’t normally do any stretching when I run normally-I know a lot of people do, but I don’t seem to need it. Afterwards maybe but not before.

-So there I was running my 1st 5K-and it was great! It’s a lot easier to run with people than solo. My side started to cramp a touch, but I put my mind elsewhere & it disappeared. Nice & cool today so no heating problems.

-I ran non stop till I hit the finish line at around the 30 minute mark. I felt fine-hell, when I turned the last corner I actually increased my pace pretty good & finished strong. No aching-wasn’t really out of breath-just a sense of accomplishment.

-Turns out my pedometer is off-when I crossed the line it read 2.43 miles. So I’ve been running longer distances in training than I thought.

-There were over 10,000 people here for this & it was so great to be a part of this. The guy who placed 1st did so in around 16 minutes. I wonder what my time would have been if I’d been closer to the starting line. Guess I have to wait till next year for that-not to mention heading out to the fairgrounds A LOT earlier 🙂

-BTW-later that night, my car did break down and it had to be towed away. I’m so glad that this didn’t happen that morning!

SUSAN G KOMEN RACE FOR THE CURE
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